It was much more than an open secret. The information advanced this Saturday by El País in relation to the breakdown of the leadership of the Mossos d'Esquadra just nine months after the dismissal of Major Josep Lluís Trapero has not surprised anyone.
At the time, the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, struck down Trapero defending a message of collective direction and feminization of the police. That message has been completely cracked. The political leader now has the floor after the designated chief commissioner, Josep María Estela, asked him several weeks ago that he should choose between him or his second, Commissioner Eduard Sallent.
Yesterday those responsible for the Interior tried to put out this great fire with buckets of water. They did not deny the crisis, because it is vox populi, but their message was clear. They will not let the storm subside over time and thus lower the intensity of the information related to this pulse. Or what is the same: “Sallent is untouchable”. If the current number two of the Catalan police is untouchable, the position of the Ministry is clear: between number one and number two, we save number two and let number one bear the consequences.
What has happened in these nine months so that in the middle of September the crisis becomes headline? It is convenient to make a brief review of this period to understand what happened. On December 20, 2021, Minister Elena dismissed Trapero and all his trusted commanders, according to the criteria of the Interior: the commissioners Joan Carles Molinero, Miquel Esquius, Carles Anfruns, and the mayor Toni Rodríguez, who passed without blinking from the general judicial police station to the Rubí police station.
Only the Barcelona commissioner, Marta Fernández, was saved from the purge, who during these months has suffered from the vacuum of the Interior, endless obstacles and campaigns against her, which Estela himself tried to put an end to with a personal letter addressed to to all the controls, warning that the police station of the Catalan capital and her team had their support and in which he applauded their work.
Elena chose Estela and placed Commissioner Sallent as number two, who had already been number one. The landing of the first was complicated, but she trusted that, little by little, he would take the reins of the organization. She also believed that the lack of authority was an isolated issue, attributable to the adaptation period. Even so, Estela raised her voice when it was disseminated among some media, including this newspaper, the first office to which Trapero was sent after his dismissal.
Estela also raised her voice when the oldest was humiliated and had to remain in the stalls during the Esquadras act, without the option to take a seat on stage. Little by little, Estela was becoming aware and showing her disagreements and saying what she thought. Her opinion was light years away from that of her second, especially in matters that have to do with political interference in police matters.
The intended choral performance did not take long to fade: Estela and Sallent did not speak to each other, neither in public nor in private. Neither of them keeps the forms anymore. Moreover, in the dining room of the central complex of Egara, the chief curator sits, has breakfast and eats, with some of those who were once Trapero's closest collaborators, but who were saved because at the time they were not identified by Interior , such as the mayor Amadeu Domingo.
And this disagreement is not the only one that leaves the announced intentions of the Minister of the Interior in the lurch. His plans for the feminization of body management are in doubt. Until now, the presence of women in the leadership and the alleged parity in the high command has been merely testimonial.
The ball is in Elena's court. If, as they say in their department, they do not plan to lift a finger and summon Estela and Sallent to "behave like adults and work together because they are not the first or the last who do not like each other", it will be the chief commissioner who has to make the decision . The question is to resolve whether he continues to lead the police organization unauthorized by his minister, but with the support of all the commissioners of the territory.
Elena and her team tried yesterday to minimize the crisis. They need to buy time and arrive until December. At that time, the new six commissioners will be appointed, four women and two men, according to the plans that the political leadership has already communicated. It will be time to dismiss Estela, if she has been able to endure these months, and appoint a woman head of the Mossos. A place destined for one of the new commissioners, the one with the best profile to work with an untouchable Sallent who will continue to hold an all-powerful position of number two.
