The counselor Joan Ignasi Elena and the 'major' of the Mossos, Josep Lluís Trapero. Quique Garcia (EL PAÍS)
The dismissal of Josep Lluís Trapero from the head of the Mossos d'Esquadra is being traumatic and threatens to turn into a labor conflict.
The
major
has returned to work this Tuesday after a few days of leave.
But his specific tasks are yet to be defined.
For now, he remains in an office at the Plaza de España police station in Barcelona.
The Department of the Interior designed a "risk analysis" position for him, away from the day-to-day of the Catalan police and from any operational task.
Interior affirms that both parties are still "debating a proposal" that fits the man who has become one of the most famous police officers in Spain.
A few days before Christmas, the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena (Esquerra Republicana) announced that Trapero's second stage as head of the regional police force had come to an end.
The
major
was dismissed just a year after returning to office after being acquitted of sedition for his questionable role in the independence referendum on October 1, 2017. His departure was not an easy decision because Trapero is more than a policeman: for many he was the voice of calm during the terrorist attacks of 17-A in Barcelona and Cambrils and, for the independence movement (at least for a while), the command that did not want to use violence against the voters of 1-O.
Elena argued that the time had come to “feminize” the body and take over the generation, although she appointed a man (commissioner Josep Maria Estela) as the new boss, just a few years younger than Trapero. He also pointed to the need for shared leadership. In his second stage as a
major
, Trapero had become especially jealous of his independence and avoided any suggestion or demand from the political leaders of the Interior that he interpreted as interference.
Although there had been speculation about his leaving the private company, Trapero never had any intention of leaving the body.
This is how Elena admitted it the same day that she dismissed him: she thanked him for the services rendered in "very difficult years" (she had to deal with the
procés
) and assured that he would continue to be "linked" to the body, where accommodation would be sought for him.
But fitting in an entire
major
– he has been stripped of his functions as chief, but not of his rank, the only one in the body – is not an easy task.
Except when the new police headquarters immediately dismissed some of Trapero's most trusted people;
among them, the head of investigation, Toni Rodríguez.
Days later, Elena stated that Trapero was "necessary" for the body and announced, in an interview on radio station Rac-1, that she had offered him a position related to "analysis and future risks." A position more reflective than action, in which Trapero would be in charge of reading and writing reports on security matters, and in which he would be left out of any decision-making process on operational positions. The Department of the Interior sent him a document detailing the tasks he should do. Trapero had to examine him before his reinstatement, which took place this Tuesday.
As indicated by the Department of the Interior, Trapero appeared on Tuesday in the Plaza de España, headquarters of one of the Mossos police stations in Barcelona. Trapero's new destination caught the police officers who saw him in the building first thing in the morning by surprise. Not even the head of the region in Barcelona, Commissioner Marta Fernández, is assigned to that police headquarters.
The position of "analysis" to which the Interior wants to appoint Trapero depends, theoretically, on the director general of the Catalan police, Pere Ferrer, a position that is still in the hands of Junts in a ministry dominated by ERC. A spokesman for the Department of the Interior assures that Trapero will remain in an office at that police station while the proposal of Councilor Elena is "continued to be debated". It is a "provisional" space waiting for "its role to be defined" in the body.
The position of
major
is the highest ranking of the Mossos.
Joan Unió occupied it until 2007, but then that figure was lost until, in the spring of 2017, the Government of Carles Puigdemont recovered it.
Trapero was already the head of the body, but since then he is also the
major
.
According to the law, it corresponds to him (along with commissioners and intendants, who form the upper echelon of the body) the "command, direction, orientation, coordination and inspection" of police services.
But it does not carry a list of specific tasks;
even less if, as in this case, it is empty of content.
