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By midweek every Western European government save Ireland had recalled its ambassador from Madrid or kept him at home for "consultations"—gestures of protest against the executions. In Brussels, the Common Market's governing Commission dealt Spain what one official termed "the strongest political rebuff" ever given by the EEC; it recommended suspension of negotiations that had been under way since mid-1973 for a new preferential trade agreement between Spain and the Market. The impact of the EEC's move could be painful, as the nine Common Market members buy nearly half of all Spanish exports.
Death Throes. While the anti-Spanish street demonstrations were clearly the handiwork of left-wing groups, a much broader spectrum was represented by the astonishing number of political leaders who damned the Spanish regime with rhetoric usually reserved for wartime enemies. Britain's Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, almost joyfully asserted that the Franco government was in its death throes, and Italian Christian Democrat Paolo Cabras branded the regime "a continuing curse against all free men." Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme described the Madrid government as so many "satanic murderers"; Reiulf Steen, chairman of Norway's ruling Labor Party, defined the Franco regime as "a black barbarity." Steen implored his countrymen to forgo their winter vacations at Spam's popular resorts: "After what has happened, those who go to Spain to get a suntan ought to be ashamed of themselves."
Papal Displeasure. Just about everyone with some claim to public authority seized the opportunity to take a poke at Madrid. In Turkey, Ankara's Mayor Vedat Dalokay not only denounced the Franco regime for having "committed a crime against all humanity," but ordered that the supply of water and electricity to the local Spanish embassy be cut off (the Turkish government quickly overruled him).
Most painful for Franco, perhaps, was the displeasure demonstrated by the Vatican. Pope Paul VI denounced the executions as "murderous repression" —language exceedingly rare for the Holy See to direct toward any state and especially Spain, with which it has long maintained very strong ties.
Within Spain, reaction against the executions was mostly limited to the four Basque provinces in the north. There, a two-day general strike was called to protest the executions of the two terrorists who had been members of a Basque separatist organization (see box page 38). Police had to break up protest marches in half a dozen towns. In Algorta, a suburb of Bilbao, six Basques were injured when the Guardia Civil opened fire on demonstrators.
Madrid swiftly reciprocated for Europe's repudiation of Spain. Premier Carlos Arias Navarro denounced the international pressure on Spain to stop the executions as "an intolerable aggression against Spanish sovereignty." Arias bitterly wondered aloud why there had been "no pious voice" raised for the widows and orphans of the nearly two dozen Spanish policemen killed by terrorists since January 1974.