The Catalan Security Board meets again with the expansion of the Mossos and sexist violence on the agenda

The Catalan Security Board meets this Friday at the Palau de la Generalitat, against the background of the social upheaval caused by savage rape, probably in a group, of a 16-year-old girl in Igualada. The president Pere Aragonès will lead a closed-door meeting with the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the counselor Joan Ignasi Elena. During the day, the staging of agreements is planned in which technicians from the Ministry and the Generalitat have been discreetly working for months.

By the Govern the secretary general also attends Oriol Amorós; the director general of the Police, Pere Ferrer, and the head of Legal Advice, Francesc Claverol. The government entourage is also made up of the Secretary of State for Security, Rafael Perez; the delegate in Catalonia, Teresa Cunillera placeholder image, and the Director of Coordination and Studies of the Secretary of State for Security, Jose Antonio Rodriguez.

On the table is the issue of gradual expansion of the Mossos staff, which has studied since last year a mixed commission with an eye on the goal of Catalonia reaching the European average number of police officers per 100,000 inhabitants. It is a key issue, but no less urgent than the other big item on the agenda: the integration of information systems on sexist violence Catalan and state police. The meeting is held in a climate of maximum social sensitivity on the subject. After the aggression of Igualada, Aragonès himself has led concentrations of rejection. The victim is still being treated in the ICU of the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital.

There is also in the background of this meeting the debate on the unsafety in Barcelona and the protests of the mossos and local police for the numerous assaults of which they are the object, and that have led to a condemnation of the Parliament only 24 hours before this Security Meeting.

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The main political issue, that of the expansion of the Catalan police staff, acquires more and more urgency before the aging of the mossos due to lack of renewal of the collective. Among them, the age groups of 42, 43, 44, 45 and 46 are the most numerous, with more than 1,000 members. There are only 46 agents who are 30 years old; and 65 with 30 years or less, when those who are over 50 are already 3,583. The ratio also supports the agreement: the average of 350 agents for every 100,000 Europeans is far from the 243 for every 100,000 Catalans. The objective is to reach a staff of 20,000 mossos, which would be completed in annual extensions to add 4,000 to those currently in force. The pace of these expansions is influenced by the point of view of the Treasury: the base salary of the mossos is paid by the State.

The issue of main social significance, but no less political, that of the information unit against sexist violence, culminates in a gradual improvement in the integration of the mossos and the state police that began in the Security Board held in August of 2018, which approved the entry of the Catalan police into the Intelligence Center against Terrorism and Organized Crime (CITCO) as an initial step.