The Minister of the Interior of the Generalitat, Joan Ignasi Elena, defended this Tuesday that he will not allow "political interference in the operational decisions" of the Mossos d'Esquadra, and has warned that he will not allow "police interference in political decisions" either. . In response to a question from the PSC-Units this Tuesday in the plenary session of the Parliament, he has assured that in the Catalan police "there will be political direction" because it is a public service that depends on the sovereignty of the Parliament.
In her speech, Elena referred to the letter from the chief commissioner Josep María Estela in which a week ago he tried to settle the crisis by choosing to remain at the head of the institution, despite the refusal of the ministry to dispense with commissioner Eduard Sallent as number two, as he had requested weeks before. And she summoned him to end the episode of "disagreements" between commanders. However, Espadaler challenged Elena to take the podium and ensure that in December she would keep the current chief commissioner in her place and that he would not cease taking advantage of the appointment of the new commissioners.
The deputy Ramon Espadaler warned the Minister of his "concern and perplexity" at the situation that the Mossos d'Esquadra headquarters is experiencing with a fracture between number one and two of the body; and a rupture also between the police leadership and politics. And he warned the former Minister of the Interior that he was concerned about the "silence" on the part of the Department of the Interior.
In his account of the latest events that have greatly shaken the police organization, Espadaler made a tour of the latest information that has had the Mossos as protagonists. From the order of police officer Josep Marí Estela to Elena requesting the dismissal of police officer Eduard Sallent as two of the police organization; to the dissemination of the content of the lawsuit to the contentious-administrative court that the mayor Toni Rodríguez presented in May and that has now been known precisely pointing to Sallent as the command that requested a copy of the judicial proceedings opened against Miquel Buch when he was in charge of the Department of the Interior. Elena assured that the command had "every right" to present its demand and make its statements, but she reproached Espadaler for "giving a letter of nature to the complaints that the command recounts in its letter and that affect him."
Elena went a little further and I do not hesitate to compare Rodríguez's writing with the one written at the time by Colonel Diego Pérez de los Cobos, who directed the failed police device against the referendum of October 1, 2017, against his dismissal signed by the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska. "Now I remembered when, to Minister Marlaska, Mr. Pérez de los Cobos appealed his dismissal. I do not know if I would share the intervention that you have made now and the statements that that man made in legitimate defense of his interests, which I do not share", Elena has reproached."Surely her intervention in that case would be different, but now she has to defend something else", she insisted looking at the deputy Espadaler.
A whole story of facts, added Espadaler, which have to do, he denounced with the "politicization of the police" that in his opinion Elena and her team have carried out since she took charge of the Department of the Interior, on behalf of the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya . Elena defended this politicization, marking criteria such as feminization, the fight against sexist violence or proximity. While Espadaler reminded him that all the ministers had marked a political guideline in their work at the head of the department but without "inferring in the judicial investigations." And he specifically mentioned the new protocol for action on evictions that the Mossos are preparing at the request of the Interior and that continues to slow down. The Minister challenged Espadaler to cite "a single action in which someone from the department has interfered in an operational decision."
In his parliamentary speech, Espadaler recalled that at the time, nine months ago, when Elena decided to dismiss Major Josep Lluís Trapero as head of the Mossos, the Catalan socialists already described the movement as a "purge" and, he added, "time will He's proving right." The Units per Avançar deputy assured that at that time the political leadership of the department moved 35 positions.
As for the consequences of the crisis, Espadaler has accused Elena of causing general discouragement in the police organization and has assured that the current situation is causing a "drain of police talent" to other organizations. He cited inspector Lluis Miquel Venteo and mayor Justo Medrano on that list of "escaped", the first at Barça and the second at the Hospitalet town hall, although both left before the arrival of ERC at the ministry. And he did mention commissioner Xavier Porcuna who will also join Barça on the 13th and in his case moved by the "sadness" generated by the current situation in the police leadership, according to sources from his environment when La Vanguardia advanced his signing by Joan Laporta. Elena applauded these signings, assuring that this allowed for better coordination between the institutions they attended and the Catalan police.
To end up recovering Elena's phrases in her day, which justified Trapero's dismissal for the sake of a choral leadership. "Not only has the choral direction not worked, but not even the duo has endured them." Elena responded to the deputy assuring that the leadership was not a duo, but a quartet and she made it ugly that the deputy from the socialist group forgot to mention the mayor Rosa María Boch or the spokesperson inspector Montserrat Escudé.
