Unions of the National Police and Professional Associations of Civil Guards have returned to the streets to show their frontal opposition to and that the representatives of the agents qualify as “illegal transfer” of competences to the Mossos d’Esquadra. They have done it with concentrations before the headquarters of 18 Government Delegations after last week their leaders met with the PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and this encouraged them to continue with the protests in parallel to the parliamentary offensive of their party against this pact.
In fact, shortly before the agents were concentrated, the popular spokesman in Congress, Miguel Tellado, loaded against the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, in the control session and accused him to lie and to disdain this issue. In his response, Grande-Marlaska has insisted that the agreement does not imply “neither assignment of border control nor assignment of irregular migratory flows” to the Generalitat of Catalonia. Since the agreement was known, the minister has defended that this does not “substantially” the activity that the Civil Guard, the National Police or the organs of the State Administration have been providing in this community.
On Wednesday’s protests were convened by a platform that brings together 12 police unions and associations of civil guards (including SUP and AUGC, which once maintained a good relationship with the PSOE) arising to claim labor improvements, such as salary equalization with other police bodies, recognition as a risk profession or improvements in retirement, but that since its creation has also been manifested against political projects such as political the citizen security law – the colloquially known as Gag law– Or, now, the Delegation of Immigration Competencies to the Generalitat of Catalonia.
In Madrid, where the leaders of the main convening organizations have come, a manifesto has been read in which they have assured that the pact “which has yet to be processed in Congress in the form of a law proposal -” represents an unnecessary danger to Spain and for Europe. ” In the message, the police platform has described as “unacceptable that the president of the Government accompanies independence groups in his attempt to dismantle the State and its institutions.”
The representatives of the agents have launched a warning: “If no one puts a brake on this situation, we will be the police and civil guards, together with parties, institutions and citizens who still believe in the empire of the law, who end this madness, always within the legality.” Protesters have also charged against Minister Grande-Marlaska, who have accused that “their attitude conceals illegality and humiliates the State Security Forces and Bodies.” “A president of the government that sells us and an Interior Minister who puts himself in profile are unworthy of his positions,” they added.
This last concentration, to which other police organizations not integrated into the platform have been added, also to show their rejection by the immigration agreement. In fact, the messages thrown both this Wednesday and then have been very similar, and again the calls have once again exhibited a cardboard cof former president Carles Puigdemont. All accompanied by the noise of firecrackers and whistles.
In the protest of last week, Núñez Feijóo – who had received two days before the leaders of all police organizations at a meeting where he encouraged them to continue with the protests in the street, as confirmed to El País four of the attendees to that meeting – came to greet the protesters. On this occasion, however, neither he nor any popular deputy have attended the protests after excusing themselves that the call coincided with the plenary in the lower house.
Who has come has been the Vox parliamentarian Javier Ortega-Smith, whose presence after the banner that presided over the protest has caused discomfort in some protesters, as this newspaper has been able to verify. The reason was what happened on the night of November 16, 2023, during, some of which had concluded with serious altercations in which numerous agents were injured.
That day, the councilor also at the Madrid City Council went to the area escorted by several television cameras and, after showing his accreditation of deputy to the head of the operation, of the members of the Police Intervention Unit (IIP, known as riot). Last December, in another union protest of police, the union leaders avoided in an ostensible way to appear next to him.
