Next day the 19th at five in the afternoon, the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, and the mayor Jaume Collboni will chair the Barcelona Security Board. An appointment to which the top political leaders of the Mossos d'Esquadra and the Urban Guard of the Catalan capital hope to reach a minimum agreement that will allow them to appear before the media, bringing positions closer after the serious institutional crisis they are going through and which La Vanguardia reported this week.
Information that no one has denied and that precisely forced yesterday's meeting to be called. The setting for the meeting was Barcelona City Hall in the afternoon.
The director of the Catalan police, Pere Ferrer, will be presented by Interior; the commissioner and head of the Mossos d'Esquadra, Eduard Sallent, and the police station responsible for Barcelona, Montserrat Estruch. In the Consistory, the manager of Security and Mobility, Maite Casado, was waiting for them; the mayor mayor and head of the Urban Guard, Pedro Velázquez, and the mayor and head of communication of the municipal police, Jordi Oliveras.
The meeting was “cordial,” as confirmed yesterday by sources from the two delegations, who agreed to meet again, perhaps not these same six officials, before the Security Board to continue moving forward and ironing out differences.
The starting point was not easy. And even more so after the institutional crisis that was beginning to affect the operational level was revealed by this newspaper.
In the end, what both the Interior and the City Council have agreed on is that neither of the two institutions is interested in maintaining a situation that directly harms the security of the city of Barcelona and the people of Barcelona.
And much less at the doors of a Security Board that will not be easy because the figures that will be presented are very bad, as confirmed by several sources.
The first half of 2023 is much worse than the second, which recovered a little compared to the previous year, but even so, the increasing trend in practically all criminal chapters is general and worrying. Hence the shared will of those responsible for Barcelona's security not to appear before the media with bad figures and, furthermore, without being able to maintain institutional cooperation. The six attendees at the meeting trust that joint research teams can be maintained in matters such as public health.
