Brussels, 22/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, President Josep Borrell opened the plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels with the communication on the "permanent" ceasefire announced by ETA in Spain. "With a horizon free of terrorist violence coming into focus, this is the time to be calm and patient, and to remember the victims of terrorism. It is a time for hope and the unity of all democratic political forces. This is an important moment, not just for Spanish society, but for the whole of the European Union", declared Josep Borrell.
During a short ad hoc debate which followed the announcement, the president of the Socialist group Martin Schulz gave the floor to his colleague Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, whose Basque husband was murdered by ETA many years ago. The other MEPs all welcomed ETA's gesture, but with a few mixed responses. Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the EPP-ED, insisted: this terrorist group must not receive any "political quid pro quos", and the Northern Irish Unionist James Nicholson, a member of the same group, said that he "completely agreed with Hans-Gert". Spanish Partito Popular MEP Alejo Vidal Quadras went even further, stating that ETA had declared a truce "for a period of time determined by itself, in order to achieve its political objectives and without a single word of regret or any request for forgiveness". Spanish Socialist Enrique Baron, and Willy Meyer Pleite, a Spanish member of the group GUE/NGL, on the other hand, urged their colleagues to seize this opportunity for reconciliation and peace. This was echoed by Irish Labour member Proinsias de Rossa and the Irish co-president of the group Union for a Europe of Nations, Brian Crowley, who said: let us think about the possible future victims that this decision will help to avoid, let us think of the lives that have been sacrificed because people refused to talk on an equal footing for decades. Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the group of Greens/EFA, added that this decision shows two things, "that democracies are right to resist terrorism, but also that we must know how to negotiate and talk, as has been done in Northern Ireland". The German Green congratulated "all the Spanish political forces" which have allowed such a development, adding: "I propose that ETA's letter be sent to Hamas, so that they can follow this example".