The Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, does not want to leave the department without first leaving the appointment of the second largest of the Mossos d’Esquadra firmly in place. This is the highest professional category in the organizational chart of the Catalan police. A category for which two places were planned at the time. One is occupied by Major Josep Lluís Trapero, who ran and was appointed when he was chief of police; and the second was called a few weeks ago with the current head of the Mossos, Commissioner Eduard Sallent, in mind. The current political team of the Interior and the Police did not foresee that a second commissioner would compete for the position, the Alícia Moriana police station. This Tuesday morning, the Police management published the call for interviews with the two candidates. They will be carried out by the police director himself, Pere Ferrer, in his office in Barcelona, ??two hours apart, and just two days before the regional elections.
The square was put out to tender after President Pere Aragonès announced the early call for elections. Some elections that forced the Interior to make the call in advance, on March 6, in a meeting of commanders in which Pere Ferrer made the announcement that caught practically everyone by surprise except Sallent. Two unions have appealed the call in court, ensuring that the process does not correspond to the administration’s current regulations.
In fact, the rules do not include the holding of an interview which, in the opinion of some legal officials of police unions, responds to an attempt to circumvent the appeals presented that are still being processed in the courts. The rules only state that the police director must prepare a report on the person he considers most suitable to occupy that category of major. The unions maintain that the call was “so hasty” that it ignores the elements that will be evaluated to select the suitable person. Hence they accuse the Interior of making an absolutely subjective selection. It is worth remembering that the contest is not to elect the head of the body, where the objective criteria of the political leader of the moment prevail. It is about appointing a person to exercise a category, the maximum of the Mossos, for which there are only two positions; and one is already occupied by Trapero.
The question that many Mossos commanders are asking is whether it is legitimate that a government, that of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, which will hardly govern again, in view of the results predicted by all the polls, can “mortgage” a structure police appointing the second in the highest category. At the time, Elena justified the call by warning of the “need” to “guarantee” a period of stability at the top, thinking about Commissioner Eduard Sallent. In any case, the hypothetical appointment of him as his senior does not guarantee that he will maintain the reins of the Mossos d’Esquadra. And if not, ask Trapero.
