3 Things About ETAs Collapse

One: Catalonia. Plausible promise potentially realizable.
Two: Classic failure to adapt. Was actually fighting drug traffickers rather than embracing the transnational business opportunity. Failure to adopt systems disruption in a sustained way.
Three: Secretive hierarchy. Failure to seed and support other groups.

Comments

[rjh]

Other factors include:
1) Reduced public support due to replacement of Franco and general economic improvement.
2) A significant fraction were more interested in winning their goals than in fighting, hence steps such as fighting the drug trafficers instead of joining them.

(Neato. EDGE really does work. Composed while traversing New Jersey on Amtrak.)

[ty]

1) ETA is Basque, not Catalonian. They are separate regions in Spain (Basque country extends into France as well) with highly distinct histories of struggles for autonomy.
In other words, Catalonia/Catalunya, the region whose capital is Barcelona, had nothing at all to do with ETA's collapse

[quieto]

ty:

um...i'm quite sure he knows this. he's referring to the estatut, which is an agreement by the spanish government to allow catalunya more political and economic autonomy, precisely what ETA purports to be fighting for for the basque region, except that it's not straight independence, so it's a compromise. this makes their armed struggle somewhat pointless, since the peaceful route can obtain such a compromise.