At a press conference on 8 February 2011, party supporters backed a Basque state "within a European Union framework, via exclusively peaceful and political channels."

[9] The District Attorney of the Basque Country High Court, however, stated that the two parties are not the same and that Sortu "has said things never previously said.

"If this rejection of violence included in the statutes of the new party allow for the end of this situation of illegality or not, it is a decision that is up to judges" said Deputy Prime Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba.

This was decided by the "61st chamber" of the Supreme Court, which considered the new party to be sponsored by the "Basque nationalist left" as the successor to Batasuna, therefore in affiliation with ETA.

According to most magistrates, the evidence of the links between ETA and the eighth political party created by the Basque nationalist left is so solid that the rejection of violence contained in the statutes is now of secondary importance.