For one thing, cracks may be opening within the Basque Nationalist Party.

ECONOMIST: Spain

In Spain the minority Socialist Government has had to moderate its plans so as to get the blessing of the Basque Nationalist Party.

FORBES: Euro �C economics pays the price of political ego

It is hoping to oust the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) from the Basque parliament, and is even considering a pact with the Socialists to achieve this.

BBC: Analysis: ETA still poses threat

Last month, ETA appeared to suffer a further setback when the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which advocates independence from Spain through peaceful means, won 33 seats in the 75-member parliament in Basque regional elections.

CNN: UK asked to extradite ETA suspect

The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and a smaller ally called the election in February, a year ahead of schedule, after a political crisis provoked by 29 killings linked to ETA since the group called off a ceasefire in late 1999.

CNN: Basque voters urged to reject ETA

The moderate, peace-minded Basque Nationalist Party, which runs the regional government and has five seats in parliament in Madrid (where it generally supports Mr Aznar's government in important votes), sat mum for a couple of days before lambasting the verdict.

ECONOMIST: Spain and the Basques

The arithmetic of Spain's parliament, where the Socialists are seven seats short of a majority, and the decision of fairweather allies in left-wing and Catalan nationalist parties to withhold support, leaves the prime minister at the mercy of the six deputies of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV).

ECONOMIST: Spanish politics

"I think that when ETA saw that the process of independence was not moving forward at the speed they wished, and when ETA saw that the Basque Nationalist Party was not moving forward at the speed it wanted either, that is when it ended the ceasefire, " he added.

BBC: Politicians condemn separatists

Bush announced that the United States would place financial sanctions on Batasuna, a Basque nationalist political party that the Spanish government says is the political wing of ETA, a militant separatist group fighting for an independent homeland.

CNN: Bush pushes for end of Iraqi sanctions

The prime minister also urged the Basque regional president, Juan Jose Ibarretxe, a member of the mainstream nationalist party, to keep talking to the guerrillas in the hope that he might persuade them not to start killing again.

ECONOMIST: Spain and the Basques