FORGIVE ME if I fail to get much excited about ETA "declaring ceasefire". That's because, if you read the communiqué in full (Spanish translation from the original in Basque), they merely declare an end to "offensive attacks". Which, in their perverse logic, it's something they've never done. They have never attacked: they have been responding, defending themselves, from what they call "attacks" on them from Spain.

So it all seems a very calculated move: after the police has been successfully dismantling them, they are in a bad shape. It's not the first time they have apparently called for a ceasefire as a way of getting some time off and a chance to regroup (in fact, the last time the communiqué was more blunt, but it still ended this way). Plus, there's local elections soon, and they need the 'legitimacy' so that their political allies can run, get a few councilmen elected, and start getting the public funds that the government gives to the parties with political representation.