By the BBC's Flora Botsford

Basque security chiefs in northern Spain are meeting in the regional capital, Vitoria, to review the current security arrangements for local politicians amid a continuing threat of attack by the Basque separatist group, ETA.

The Spanish Government has recommended that people in public life in the Basque region are escorted everywhere by bodyguards, but this has not stopped the shootings and bomb attacks which are a regular feature of political life in Spain.

The Basque Government has also invited representatives of all political parties and the interior ministry to the meeting in Vitoria.

However, Herri Batasuna, the party closest to ETA, has said it will not be attending and the interior minister himself has also declined.

Safety fear

Discussions will focus on the current ETA threat.

A week ago a Socialist deputy mayor and her bodyguard were injured in a bomb attack.

The week before that a Socialist youth member survived a bomb planted in his car but lost a leg.

The regional government believes democracy itself is under attack.

Afraid, many politicians do not stand for election

In some municipalities members of Spain's mainstream parties are too frightened to stand as candidates, giving Batasuna or the more moderate Basque nationalist parties an unfair advantage in the political process.

The Basque Interior Minister, Javier Balza, who is chairing the meeting, has asked the central government to provide 200 extra officers for the Basque police force, a request which has so far been refused.

He also wants Basque police officers to be allowed to take part in EU security meetings, which began after 11 September as part of the global war on terrorism.

Search for protection

Other proposals on the table include a change in Spain's penal code to incorporate a prison sentence for anyone found to be threatening a politician.

Many people in public life in the Basque region and elsewhere in Spain know they are under threat and have contracted bodyguards, many of them from private companies paid for by the interior ministry.

The search for protection has extended to not just politicians but members of the judiciary, writers and academics, business executives and increasingly journalists.

But, while ETA will often choose soft targets, people it knows have little official protection, and what there is available has not stopped the bombing and shooting.