The Minister of the Interior of the Generalitat, Joan Ignasi Elena, visited the Maresme region yesterday, 68 days after the first protest by the mayors of Alt Maresme to demand more Mossos d'Esquadra troops. Elena did not make concessions to the demands of the elected officials other than the creation of a permanent Security Board to combat specific cases, such as the problem with the multiple repeat offenders in Calella.
At the proposal of the mayor of Mataró, David Bote, “we will create a stable and permanent space to share information and articulate proposals,” Joan Ignasi Elena advanced after the meeting with the mayors of the region. “We must articulate solutions” added the president of the Regional Council, Francesc Alemany (ERC) to avoid “the fight between municipalities and not generate competitors.”
The political situation in the region became tense to the maximum two months ago after the statements of the mayors of Junts in which they demanded to promote measures against multiple repeat offenders, which in cases like that of Calella, even damage the image of the tourist destination. Elena, in this sense, announced that eight of the 11 criminals who have provoked the angry reaction of the councilors are already serving prison sentences and admitted that Calella's crime rates are 60% higher than the Catalan average.
The councilor spoke again about the “perception of insecurity” generated by some repeat crimes, but reported that the crime rates in Maresme are 15 points below the Catalan average, or what is the same, 68 crimes per 1,000 inhabitants, when The average in Catalonia is 78 criminal acts.
From the Interior they specified that they are working on a new structural area, like the one that until now is limited to the Barcelona metro, to promote devices in the Rodalies stations, key points for the mobility of criminals.
On the other hand, they rejected other proposals from the mayors such as allowing the payment of overtime to the region's mossos or providing financial resources to compensate the City Councils for the efforts of the Local Police Forces who are forced to replace the powers of the Mossos. . In this sense, Marc Buch (Junts), mayor of Calella, gave as an example that criminal activity and the lack of Catalan police officers has cost him 60,000 euros in overtime for the local police.
Buch deplored that “we had to raise our voices so that the Interior would listen to us” but thanked the councilor for “having shown his face.” Precisely next week Joan Ignasi Elena will chair the Calella Local Security Board. There, he will not find the warm atmosphere that the Republican mayors of Maresme gave him yesterday.
In Calella they will disgrace what they consider “unnecessary insults” such as accusing the mayors who demanded the expulsion of repeat offenders from the country as xenophobic. Some statements that the councilor has flatly denied having made but that councilors such as Óscar Fernández de Cabrera de Mar (Junts) urged him to withdraw.
Elena picked up the gauntlet of the Junts mayors who in Maresme accuse him of neglecting the municipalities and did not hesitate to accuse the mayor of Calella of disloyalty and of being partisan with the problem of recidivism. The mayors, for her part, censure her for being untruthful when she declares that the number of Mossos troops has been reinforced to 190 agents. A figure that, according to Buch and corroborated by the unions, is the same as two years ago, so “there has not been an increase in police forces here.”
