The breaking news is that ETA announced a truce only in Catalonia this afternoon; it looks like Carod-Rovira's meeting with the ETA leadership paid off and that there was a quid pro quo. Everybody in Spain is thoroughly pissed off at the Tripartite government in Catalonia, since what it has effectively done is negotiate a separate peace, leaving the rest of Spain looking down the gun barrel. Spanish Socialist leaders are calling for the Catalan Socialists to pull out of the Tripartite coalition.

The problem with that is new elections will probably prove to be necessary. The current PSC-ERC-ICV coalition cannot stand if the PSC pulls out, of course, but the only other feasible coalition would be CiU and ERC, and ERC is precisely the problem. A PSC-CiU government would probably be impossible since they've hated one another's guts for the last 24 years.