Most of us agree: The violence is over. We also agree a lot on this: The end of violence is not the end of political conflict. But from there, instead of affirmations come questions: once the violence of ETA is over, how to put the political conflict in solution? What comes, or should come, after the unilateral decisions of the Union and ETA?

If anything was clear in the 2005-2007 process, the methodology was:

• Bilateral commitment to engage in the process before the ceasefire.

• Ceasefire as a result of these commitments.

• A two-table or two-lane peace process after the announcement of a ceasefire.

• Negotiation of technical issues between ETA and the Spanish Government.

• Negotiation between political parties on political issues.

• And, once a consensus is reached between the parties on the new rules of the game, the way in which the agreement is carried out in institutions and legislation.

Nothing will be the same. In the processes to date, getting ETA to lay down its arms has been the main motivation to engage in political negotiations for most significant actors other than the nationalist left. Now, if ETA has made a unilateral decision on its own, it is not difficult to imagine the question of the leaders of the PSOE and some of the PNV: why negotiate?

Brian Currin, speaking before presenting the name and surname of the International Contact Group on 12 November last year, stated that the priority of this group would be to promote negotiations between the Basque parties, not in spontaneous statements, but in the document prepared specifically on the “mandate” of the Contact Group:

“[The role of the International Contact Group is] to encourage, facilitate and facilitate multilateral dialogue and negotiation, without any conditions and without predetermining the outcome, subject to the Mitchell Principles. An inclusive agreement to overcome the political conflict would be the goal of multi-party dialogue and negotiation."

When he introduced the group itself three months later, he said that the priority of these international actors will be to influence the legalization of Crea, leaving the dialogue between the parties in the background. What happened during that time? They have realized somewhere that there are still no conditions to start negotiating anything at the party tables: The PP is against it, the PSE-EE says it is against it and the PNV leadership does not see any need for it now.

On the road map of the signatories of the Gernika agreement, however, the negotiations between the parties are an important stop. But before starting to do so, certain conditions must be met, according to the agreed text: first, a non-violent scenario and the legalization of all parties, after which it will be “essential to expand spaces for dialogue and political negotiation in order to fully analyze the causes and consequences of the conflict.” Guernica’s statement further specifies what agreement should be sought at this table or tables: “The contents of the political dialogue will be aimed at an agreement that includes all the political cultures of the Basque Country: on the recognition of the Basque national reality and decision-making power; on the internal legal-institutional model and, in terms of the type of connection with the States, including independence; and on respect for the democratic will of the people.”

The more detailed scheme described by the Basque nationalist left in the Euskal Herria document obviously coincides with that of Gernika: first the “minimum democratic bases” (legalization), then the “democratic agreement” (negotiation of the rules of the game), and then the “democratic framework” (renewal of the political framework with the new rules of the game agreed and the ratification of the citizens).

Therefore, according to the road map of the signatories of the Gernika agreement, the PNV, the PSE-EE and the Union have room for negotiations on the political content of the Loyola table in this new process as well. At the Loyola table there were more negotiation issues, but basically the right to decide and the structuring of the territory were the main keys. In the first point they agreed on the formulation: they wrote that all political projects must be defensible, but also enforceable, and that Madrid should respect what Basque society has decided, with words accepted by all three parties. But at the other major point, the consensus was ultimately impossible: the PSE-EE refused to push for a plan to form a unified autonomy of four countries, and the PNV opposed demanding this from the socialist party.

At the next negotiating table, at the stage when the nationalist left calls it a “democratic agreement”, the same question will not be in the same way. Or at least it shouldn't be. The Basque Country document itself makes a good distinction between issues and areas: “A democratic agreement”, he says, “would be a developed agreement within the political content elaborated in the final negotiation process”, that is, “recognizing the national character of the Basque Country, guaranteeing the materialization of all political projects and structuring the juridical-political channels through which the Basque territories –among themselves and with the State– establish relations”. In other words, it is through negotiation that rules of the game are agreed, not concrete political projects. This follows, in a phase that calls it the “democratic framework”: “It would be formed thanks to the popular will. This is where the Nationalist Left would place its efforts to achieve autonomy in the four countries it would receive the right to decide.” If I have understood correctly, the Nationalist Left has taken the issue of the formation of a unified autonomy in the South from the negotiating table on the rules of the game and has taken it to the next phase, which is the battlefield where decisions are made according to the game of the majorities.

But political negotiation, even in the perspective of those who want to push it, comes later. First peace, then politics. Do you remember him? The phrase that Josu Jon Imaz and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero repeated so many times has now taken root in other parties. The signatories of the Gernika agreement also affirm that the first step must be to ensure a peaceful environment, followed by negotiations on the rules of the game.

The Nationalist Left is also working with this scheme. In all previous processes, it was not until the political issue was resolved that negotiations on “technical issues”, including the issue of prisoners, should be addressed. Now, however, the issue of prisoners has taken priority on the roadmap of the patriotic left. And with regard to the distribution of negotiating issues, the criteria of the Declaration of Rations remain in force: The issue of prisoners should be discussed between ETA and the Spanish Government, along with the other “technical issues”.

We have returned to the problem of departure. The Spanish government says it has nothing to negotiate with ETA, and the Basque Government and the PSE-EE say there is no need to form a dialogue table between the Basque parties. If it’s true that ETA has stopped, they may think they don’t need it. And if what they say in public statements is true, they think so.

Since the times of making the enemy sit at the negotiating table by means of attack campaigns have passed happily, these are times of accumulation of forces, of trying to change the correlations of forces through the political game: to gather forces among the supporters of the negotiated solution, to strengthen the area of the supporters of the change of the political framework and, by changing and winning the majorities, to provoke the negotiation; to reach the negotiating table, but in case of a strong arrival. Analyzing the strategies and behaviors of those who are driving this process, it is suspected that they want to follow such a path. Simply put: first Lizarra-Garazi, then to reach Loyola.