Trapero resigns as director of the Police and Ferran López will replace him

BarcelonaA police earthquake within the Mossos d'Esquadra and a political tremor in the Department of the Interior and the Government. The Director General of Police, Josep Lluís Trapero, is resigning. He will be replaced by Commissioner Ferran López, the Mossos' envoy in Madrid. The Major of the force, who until now was the political leader of the police, is leaving the post two years after President Salvador Illa presented him as one of his major campaign announcements to tackle insecurity.Although the Minister of the Interior, Núria Parlon, did not want to enter into controversies at the press conference, several sources admit that the relationship between her and Trapero had become complicated over the months due to various internal conflicts. One of them—the last one and, most likely, the final straw—was the selection of the new head of the Mossos after the current one, Commissioner Miquel Esquius, decided to retire in October. Parlon announced this Wednesday that his successor will be Commissioner Sílvia Catà, the first woman to assume the top operational leadership of the force, a personal bet by the minister. Until now, Catà led the Mossos in the Girona region.

Messages between Mossos commanders were exchanged this Tuesday afternoon after the Interior Department had summoned them to the department for an important meeting. It was expected that who the new head of the force would be would be announced. Everyone was clear that Esquius was retiring, and over the months, the lists of names had been repeated in the offices. Several sources consulted by ARA point out that Parlon had always been clear that she had to place a woman as head of the force, and Catà was one of the favorites, along with Commissioner Montserrat Estruch, head of the Mossos in Barcelona. However, the surprise for many police commanders was immense when the news broke that Trapero was resigning. The meeting with the Interior Department served to anoint Catà as the new Chief Commissioner but also to announce that Ferran López, who was head of the Mossos during the 155 period and was now the police official in charge in Madrid, would be the new director. The move was repeated: a police officer would be the politician of the police.

After the meeting with the high command of the Mossos, López and Catà met with President Illa at the Generalitat. The subsequent press conference was not held from the Interior Department but from the Palau de la Generalitat, and Parlon appeared accompanied by the two new police leaders. Esquius was among the public, but Trapero was not. The first thing Parlon did was to thank Esquius and Trapero for their work at the head of the force, especially in the fight against repeat offenses and organized crime. Parlon wanted to make it clear that the decision to leave was Trapero's and that he communicated it at the end of August. The minister said she would have liked the Major of the Mossos to have finished his term and insisted that she had not lost confidence in the director. "It was his personal decision," she stated, and added that he also maintained the confidence of President Illa.

Return to office

Parlon highlighted Catà's figure, stating that she is the first woman who will be head of the force and that her career has been based on a model of "proximity, territory, and teamwork." The minister also announced that Trapero will return to the position he held before becoming director general: head of the force's Inspection and Evaluation Commissariat. Parlon did not want to enter into assessing her relationship with Trapero at any point and said they have done good work and that "they cannot always agree." She also did not want to say whether the director agreed with the choice of Catà or what elements might have failed in their relationship. In fact, she stated that she does not believe he resigned due to some "discrepancies" they have had.

Trapero's resignation—and, automatically, the Government's acceptance of this departure—did not generate much surprise in some sectors of the Mossos. It was known that the relationship with Parlon was not entirely good. In fact, there were already voices from the beginning warning that two such strong characters—Trapero is a man of clear ideas and not prone to giving in, according to people who know him—would not end up meshing. From Trapero's side, they criticize that the Interior Department led him to a certain ostracism, holding back, for example, some interviews that Parlon ended up doing. Police sources admit that Trapero did not look favorably upon the choice of Catà as chief commissioner either and preferred other profiles. In fact, some of these profiles could have come from a new promotion of commissioners—one must be a commissioner to be head of the force—which was already budgeted, but which for the moment, surprisingly, has not arrived—on the other hand, those of other lower ranks have been carried out. At the same time, they point out that the appointment a few weeks ago of Joana Ricardo as secretary general of the Interior—the previous one, Tomàs Carrión, also resigned due to a lack of rapport with Parlon—has meant placing as the department's number 2 a person who is also not in Trapero's inner circle.

Communication and crises

From the Interior side, various people speak of unilateral decisions by Trapero that did not please the minister, as well as the late communication of some crises. In fact, Trapero has not had an easy stay in the police leadership, with controversies such as the pilot plan for Mossos in schools –a personal commitment of the director– or the infiltration of two agents into a school assembly. One of the most repeated comments within the Mossos is that the choice of the new chief would be a litmus test for the relationship between Parlon and Trapero, which they have not overcome. One of Illa's main bets, the Parlon-Trapero tandem, has not worked. Now, Parlon has described the new stage as continuationist.

Ferran López is an old acquaintance of the upper echelons of the police. He joined the Mossos d’Esquadra in 1989 and has accumulated more than three decades of experience within the force. His training includes the Executive Master in Public Administration from Esade (2017-2019), the higher course in direction and coordination of public security from the Ortega y Gasset University (2010-2011), and the higher program in direction and management of public security from the School of Public Administration of Catalonia (2007), as well as the national defense course from Ceseden, which he completed in 2025. His training is completed with a degree in educational sciences from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (1994-1998).

López served as chief commissioner of the Mossos d’Esquadra between 2017 and 2018 and subsequently was head of the force's headquarters between 2018 and 2020. Between 2021 and 2022, he was director of operations and security for FC Barcelona. Finally, however, the minister Joan Ignasi Elena brought him back as head of the Mossos in Madrid.

His decision to follow in Trapero's footsteps and also make the move to the political sphere of the police has generated surprise among high-ranking officials of the Mossos. Indeed, unions such as USPAC have criticized the high rate of changes within the force: since 2017, nine chiefs of police have been appointed, although in three cases (Trapero, Sallent, and Esquius) it has been the same person in two different periods. That is nine changes in nine years.