The Mossos will take over security at ports and airports from September

BarcelonaThe last meeting of the Security Board between the State and the Generalitat in Catalonia The Catalan government has given the Catalan police a cold shower: the transfer of powers over ports and airports was postponed because, according to the Catalan government, the Catalan police did not have enough personnel to guarantee the security of these infrastructures. The opposition went for the Catalan government's throat and, shortly afterwards, the Catalan president, Salvador Illa, changed his mind. Now there is a new date for this transfer. The Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, has announced that the Catalan police are expected to begin controlling the security of ports and airports from September, when the new batches of agents are incorporated. "The Catalan police will be able to take on this burden, but we need some time to prepare the structure," she said in an interview on RTVE this Monday.

As the president announced at the time, it should be done the transfer to the Security Board earlier this year, but Parlon has left the door open to agreeing on it either in this call or in the next one. This measure had already been worked on by Pere Aragonès' executive, as recalled this Monday by the general secretary of ERC, Elisenda Alamany. "Today the Minister of the Interior has made the announcement of what ERC had prepared and left finished," she claimed in a press conference. "At ERC we are committed, as always, to having the maximum number of powers at the service of our country," she added.

The postponement of this transfer was not the only controversy at the meeting between Isla, Parlon, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and their teams in December. The integration of the National Police and the Civil Guard into the Catalan emergency system was also agreed upon, which the pro-independence parties demanded the Government rectify. In this regard, the Catalan executive does not intend to back down. In fact, Parlon again denied on Monday that the integration implies a "Spanishisation" of 112 and recalled that it is about incorporating these two bodies into the platform's telematic alert system. –which, in addition, began to be worked on under the government of Carles Puigdemont and also under that of Aragonès.

Immigration transfer

Another of the responsibilities that the Mossos could have to take on in the medium term is border control in Catalonia. At least, that is what Junts is demanding from the Spanish executive, with which it continues to negotiate the "comprehensive" transfer of immigration management, including migratory flows and the ability to expel foreigners. Parlon predicted that PSOE and Junts will reach an agreement for "shared control" of the borders with the State security forces. Will Junts accept it? "I suppose so. When you negotiate you have to reach a minimum common denominator," said the minister. On the other hand, she called for not stigmatizing immigrants by pointing them out as potential criminals, despite recognizing that some of the crimes are committed by people without Spanish ID: "Mostly they are also men," she said.

The Spanish government and the junta members had to close the transfer of immigration to the Generalitat before December 31, but both parties agreed to give themselves more time to clear obstacles such as, precisely, border control. Together wants to reproduce the model of the state of Bavaria, in Germany, which has its own border police force. At a press conference, the vice president and spokesman of the party, Josep Rius, has rejected the shared model that Parlon has put on the table. "We want the Mossos to be the integral police force of Catalonia. And integral is integral, not a consortium," he said, putting his finger on the sore spot. in the latest controversy over the self-amendment that ERC will make in its political report on financing.

"Ambition"

As negotiations enter the final stretch, Parlon has issued the same warning that he repeats regarding the assumption of port and airport security: it is necessary to increase the number of Mossos so that assuming these new powers does not imply withdrawing a large number of agents from other areas, such as citizen security. In this sense, he asked Junts to close ranks with Salvador Illa's government in the demand to increase the force to 25,000 agents "with the same ambition" that it applies to the negotiation on immigration. The Catalan PP has also pointed out the lack of agents that Catalonia suffers from. Its general secretary, Santi Rodríguez, has asked for collaboration between the National Police, Civil Guard and Mossos, because in Catalonia "there is no surplus" police force and it is good that they "share" more areas of control, apart from the port and airport.

What seems likely will not be addressed in the short term is Junts' request to provide an escort for the exiled former president and MP Carles Puigdemont. Parlon has stated that the Government does not plan to do so: "I do not have it on the table." "It is not a political or personnel issue," he added, without clarifying why.