Elected in one of the most fraught moments of Spain's modern history, the government of Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero takes office this week in an atmosphere of preternatural calm. On Saturday the Prime Minister, 43, was sworn in at Zarzuela Palace in the presence of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, with a Bible, a gold crucifix and a copy of the Spanish constitution before him.

The changeover is more than merely ceremonial. Yes, the early days of Zapatero's government — like the final days of his predecessor's — will be overshadowed by the fallout from the March 11 Madrid bombings. Two days before his inauguration, three more men — a Moroccan, a Saudi and an Egyptian — were detained for questioning in connection with the attacks; on Saturday, a Bosnian on a police wanted list turned himself in. But nearly everything else seems set to change. Zapatero's ambitious agenda includes new approaches to both Spain's constitution and Europe's, awarding gay couples some of the legal rights of marriage, and the pullout of the country's 1,300 troops from Iraq. But the defining tone of Zapatero's administration may be set by the country's fight against the Basque terrorist group ETA, which has killed over 800 people in the last 36 years during its campaign for an independent state. That battle largely defined the eight years of José María Aznar's government, whose fate was sealed by its insistence on ETA authorship of the March 11 bombings. Might al-Qaeda's attacks on Madrid mark the end of ETA as well?

The sheer size and indiscriminate horror of the bombings trumped the Basque terrorists' targeted approach, and any new

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) attack would provoke massive outrage and disgust. "An armed action by ETA now would be understood as an attack against the whole society," says Patxi Zabaleta, a lawyer and former leader of the now banned Batasuna party who has defended many ETA members before Spanish courts.

Another reason for ETA to stand down is that Spanish and French police have largely broken the organization in a punishing series of more than 650 arrests since 2000. Earlier this month, French police uncovered an eta bombmaking factory in the French village of Saint Michel, a few kilometers from the Spanish border. On Friday, French police arrested three men in Châtellerault, about 300 km southwest of Paris, possessing what outgoing Spanish Interior Minister Angel Acebes said were "prepared and assembled bombs."

The end of the Aznar era also creates what Zabaleta calls "a very propitious atmosphere for a truce." In his speech last week presenting his program, the incoming Prime Minister stressed a word that had been anathema to Aznar: dialogue. While promising a "battle without quarter against all terrorism," Zapatero clearly signaled a new approach to demands for greater autonomy from the Basque and Catalonian governments. This new willingness to talk could create an opportunity for ETA to renounce violence. Still, the government must stop shy of any moves that could be interpreted as appeasement. "We have to convince them that they must put an end to their violence," says Rosa Díez, a Basque Socialist member of the European Parliament. "We will not pay a political price to end terrorism."

Alas, terrorists aren't necessarily swayed by political logic. Despite high hopes in the Basque Country and elsewhere in Spain that ETA would declare a truce, the organization has been silent on that prospect. Zabaleta says that since a previous ETA cease-fire in 1998, which it broke 14 months later, the organization has been split between older members who would accept an unconditional truce and younger militants who would only countenance such a move if the government made concessions, such as moving ETA prisoners from jails elsewhere in Spain to those in the Basque Country.

ETA may be ill-prepared to adjust to the new post-3/11 reality. "Unlike the I.R.A., in ETA we don't see a strategy to turn the lights off," says Kepa Aulestia, a Basque political analyst and former member of the Spanish parliament. "Every ETA member has two voices inside: one asking him to stop, the other one to continue." After the Madrid bombings, Spaniards spoke with one voice to stop the killing. Zapatero's task is to make sure the country's homegrown terrorists get the message.

• JAMES GRAFF
• Spain's new government hopes that the horror of the Madrid bombs may help put an end to ETA