Only a week after the Basque terrorist movement, ETA, committed one of the cruellest and most cold-blooded murders in its 30-year history, shooting a young kidnapped politician as millions of Spaniards pleaded for his life, Spain learned with envy that the IRA had re-introduced its ceasefire.
Many try to find parallels between Euskadi and the North of Ireland, and hope they can see an end to violence in both regions.
"Unfortunately Spain doesn't have a Tony Blair, nor does the Basque country have a Sinn Fein," lamented the Basque leader, Mr Xabier Arzallus, adding that ETA and its political front, Herri Batasuna, also lacked a Gerry Adams, to push them towards a cessation of violence.
Never before has there been such a mass public outpouring of condemnation against terrorism as there was in Spain last week, and never before was there greater public backing for an end to terrorism. It is estimated that some six million people, almost one-sixth of the population, took to the streets of virtually every city from Bilbao in the north to the Canary Islands out in the Atlantic to say "enough" to ETA. The demonstration in Bilbao which ended at the exact time the deadline for Miguel Blanco's life expired, drew 800,000 people in the largest manifestation ever seen in the Basque country and more than 1 1/2 million people marched in peaceful protest in Madrid on the night of Mr Blanco's funeral. For the first time in many years, the man in the Basque street seemed to have lost his fear of ETA and its political front and was ready to demonstrate it publicly. Hundreds cheered as members of the Ertxanxa, the Basque police force, made their own spontaneous anti-ETA gesture when units in San Sebastian removed the balaclavas which they usually wear to hide their identity.
But in any country with a terrorist problem, there is a narrow margin between law enforcement and making martyrs of the gunmen. The Spanish Interior Minister, Mr Jaime Mayor Oreja, admitted that public condemnation of violence is a far stronger weapon than any amendment to the penal code. "The laws already exist, and it is up to us to enforce them correctly," he told The Irish Times last week.
The Spanish government is basing its hopes on the new antiterrorist mood in the streets and the public disgust of HB, who are generally conceived to be ETA accomplices. An opinion poll taken by one newspaper last weekend showed that if elections were held in the Basque country today HB would lose around 5 per cent of the 18 per cent it won in the last elections.
Although ETA and the IRA are the last two terrorist organisations operating in Europe there are few parallels between them, or between Sinn Fein and Herri Batasuna. "In Euskadi there is an armed minority imposing its will by violence on a large democratic majority," said Mr Mayor Oreja. "The Basque country has had wide regional autonomy for last 20 years."
The Madrid newspaper El Pais sympathised with Basque politicians who tried to see similarities between Northern Ireland and Euskadi. "It is understandable they should try to," said an editorial. "But apart from being two terrorist movements with nationalist roots, the situation is very different."
But the governments in Madrid, and in the Basque country, will be watching with close interest what happens over the next few months, hoping to glean some ray of light while trying to persuade ETA and HB that they too should follow the Irish example.