Summary

At his end of year press conference, President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero admitted having made a “remarkable mistake” in predicting that twelve months later “we would be in a better situation” regarding ETA. Rodríguez Zapatero’s forecasts are well-known by now for having a devastating effect on the events they target. In this case, however, acknowledging a mistake, otherwise cruelly borne out at T-4 of Barajas Airport and at Capbreton, turns out to be just a ploy with a purely tactical aim: that the seemingly virtuous appearance of the gesture enables the government to avoid giving the explanations which it still owes to the citizens about its performance in the non-existent and deceitful “peace process”.