More Mossos d'Esquadra and more consideration for the force
BarcelonaAt the end of his term of office, Mariano Rajoy boasted that during the seven years he had governed he had not transferred any powers to Catalonia. Not only this, but he also tried to laminate self-government by multiple means, such as appeals to the Constitutional Court, and he also refused to meet basic demands such as the increase in the number of Mossos d'Esquadra (the Catalan police force), which was necessary due to both population growth and phenomena such as tourism. This has made the green light from the State-Generalitat Security Board to increase the number of Mossos in the coming years to 22,000, 3,739 more than the current ceiling, a welcome development.
What should have been institutional normality, collaboration between administrations for the benefit of citizens, has been non-existent in recent years. However, many more steps will be needed to recover the trust lost between administrations. The agreement, for example, will allow the cross-border activities of the Catalan police, but it will not yet have the maritime competencies that are still held by the Guardia Civil in Catalonia, a point that will have to be addressed later and that should also include port security. Any small gesture costs a lot, too much. Even so, today this comes as very good news because it will allow new promotions in the coming years to reach the new ceiling and thus increase the ratio of police per capita, so that we can offer a better service to citizens.
It should be stressed that we are talking about a body that in recent years has been in the spotlight for several reasons and from opposing points of view: its exemplary performance in the case of the 17-A terrorist attacks caused discomfort in the State security forces and interested leaks to discredit them; in the case of 1-O Catalan independence bid, the Policía Nacional and the Guardia Civil dissociated themselves from the agreed mechanism to go on to practice implausible violence against the population and then tried to imprison their number 1, Major Josep Lluís Trapero, who was finally acquitted by the Spanish justice system. In the post-sentence protests there were controversial episodes like the running over of a boy in Tarragona, and this week we have known the case of another young man who lost an eye due to a foam projectile.
For one reason or another, the Mossos and the police model in Catalonia have always been in question and at the centre of political debate. The Catalan Parliament is already discussing what this model should be, which we want to be scrupulously democratic and in which personal harm is minimised. A model which, as the magistrate Ramón Sáez emphasised in his ruling, is already significantly different here than in the rest of Spain, where, for example, rubber balls are still used and mediation is not used as extensively. The only thing we need to ask of the groups is that security professionals be heard in the debate, that they be taken into consideration and that decisions be taken with respect for technical criteria and accumulated experience.
