The Government will appoint Leonardo Marcos, current director general of Civil Protection and Emergencies, as the new director general of the Civil Guard next Tuesday, replacing the director until now, Mercedes González, who will have to leave the position at the head of the Armed Institute to go on the PSOE lists in the July 23 elections and after two months as head of the Armed Institute, the shortest term since 1978.
The appointment of Marcos, a native of Valderas (León) and a Law graduate from the Autonomous University of Madrid, will take place at the meeting of the Council of Ministers on Tuesday at the proposal of the Ministries of Interior and Defense.
The one who will be the new director of the Benemérita attended the Senior Management program at the National Institute of Public Administration and belongs to the Superior Corps of State Civil Administrators.
Until his appointment as General Director of Civil Protection and Emergencies in January 2020, Marcos had been, among other posts, Secretary General of the Government Delegation in Castilla y León, Inspector at the General Inspection of the Ministry of the Interior, Deputy Director General of Resources Humans at the National Institute of Statistics and deputy director general of Postgraduate and Doctorate at the Ministry of Education. He has also been Information Counselor at the Spanish embassies in Argentina, the United States and China.
During Marcos’ tenure as General Director of Civil Protection and Emergencies, the National Civil Protection System has undergone a process of empowerment and reinforcement through new instruments and coordination mechanisms that have considerably increased its efficiency, according to the Ministry of the Interior. in a press release.
Among the milestones of this period are the approval in December 2020 of the first General State Emergency Plan (PLEGEM), which reinforced coordination between all administrations and created the National Emergency Response Mechanism, which allows mobilizing all System resources between autonomous communities in situations that have not been declared of national interest.
Another of the new mechanisms is the State Civil Protection Plan against the Risk of Tsunami. Approved in June 2021, it establishes the organization and procedures to ensure an effective response by all public administrations to emergencies of this type through an alert system to notify civil protection authorities and public emergency services, as well as citizens who may be affected, with special attention to the most vulnerable people.
In June 2022, the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergencies activated the System of Notifications to the Population in the event of emergencies or catastrophes. Integrated into the National Alert Network, the RAN-PWS allows the widespread and immediate sending of alerts in SMS format to the mobile phones of people who are in areas affected by emergencies or imminent or ongoing catastrophes, thus facilitating a response much faster in situations of special gravity
And in October of last year, the V Plenary Session of the National Civil Protection Council unanimously approved the Horizon 2035 Plan, designed to guarantee an effective response to emergencies and catastrophes and ensure equal protection throughout the national territory.
Its objectives are to strengthen the operational, managerial, planning and coordinating capacity of the system’s bodies; order your resources to ensure their interoperability and support; guarantee the planning and response capacity of the different Public Administrations and increase the resilience of society by promoting a culture of prevention.
