A risky move carried out this Wednesday by the chief commissioner of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Josep Maria Estela. First thing in the morning he has sent a letter to all the Mossos with which he has tried to appease the latent crisis in the police organization and which has been echoed in recent days by several media outlets, including La Vanguardia .
The letter does not deny a single piece of information in which it has been detailed how, a few months ago, Estela raised with the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, her inability to continue working with the current number two, Eduard Sallent. In those tense meetings, the chief of police came to suggest to the political leaders that they should choose between him and Sallent. And somehow, Minister Elena and his team chose and transferred those who asked and Estela himself that Sallent was "untouchable." If Sallent this Wednesday is still untouchable, Estela's maneuver is only understood as a new ordeal to the Interior that somehow recalls the one that Major Josep Lluís Trapero carried out at the time: I continue in my position, with my responsibility, and if They want to stop me, let them do it, but explain it.
Estela surprised everyone with her writing. To the Interior and to the vast majority of commissioners and mayors at the head of the main and territorial police stations with whom she has been speaking in recent days. She also surprised Sallent. The relationship between the two, far from improving, has worsened in recent days as a result of the information. The second plays with the advantage of having struggled in other previous crises and of having survived several ministers and because it has, today, the more than evident support of the director of the police, Pere Ferrer, increasingly strengthened, of the Minister Elena, from her cabinet, and the Secretary of the Interior, Oriol Amoròs.
"We continue to work together and demonstrate our professionalism on a daily basis and improve our service to citizens," Estela wrote, claiming that she has the support of the political and police leadership in promoting "new projects." To add: "You can be sure that without the support of the Minister, his work team and the Headquarters, I would not have been able to promote all these projects that our body needs."
Estela has in her favor the boredom, bewilderment and general malaise that reigns right now among the Mossos commanders, given the possibility that the Interior will dismiss the head of the body, who is held responsible behind closed doors for having helped to externalize the crisis . With Director Ferrer in Mexico at a conference on organized crime, Minister Elena convalescing from a surgical operation and some members of his team helping to put out the political fire declared on Tuesday within the Govern, the Department of the Interior limited the Wednesday to send the chief commissioner's note to all the media, accepting the message as good.
A letter that allows the Ministry to win those three months of truce that they need until the appointment of the new six commissioners. Estela is convinced that in this period he will be able to reverse the situation and reach the end of the year stronger, and he hopes to participate directly in the selection of the new commissioners. It is difficult to determine if the support that he claims to have does not correspond more to the unanimous rejection caused by the situation. How difficult it is to know how the commissioners will react to a new round of dismissals and appointments. Police organizations and especially the Mossos are not characterized by raising their voices in the face of a political decision. Nothing happened when Trapero was fired nine months ago with the excuse of appointing a choral and female direction, broken after a few months; nor does it seem that anyone raises their voice if that happens again.
