This Tuesday, the Government is taking advantage of the decree-law on aid to people affected by DANA to introduce a legal reform which allows the Deputy Operational Director (DAO) of the National Police continue in his post, mocking his impending retirement.
According to what senior police officers described to EL ESPAÑOL, this is a government maneuver to maintain this position in which Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has placed extreme confidence.
On December 14, Chief Commissioner José Ángel González He was 65 years old and was therefore required by law to retire from office.. To allow him to continue to lead the police beyond this age, the PSOE should reform Organic Law 9/2015, of July 28, on the national police personnel regime. But for that, they would need the PP. And what the PP planned to do, according to the sources consulted, was to appeal this modification to the Senate.
If this had happened, the deadlines would have run out and the DAO would have had no choice but to abandon the position within just a month. This legal change cancels your next retirement. The Government advances this in the decree-law because of its role facing a “national emergency” caused by DANA.
“In this situation of national emergency, it would be highly dysfunctional to replace the person who, at the head of the Deputy Operational Directorate, directs and coordinates on the ground the operational functions of the members of the National Police,” said the government in the royal decree-law on the second flood aid package, published this Tuesday at the BOE.
Final provision
The Ministry of the Interior finally chose to include in the second Royal Decree law on aid to the DANA a final provision with the legal modification so that the DAO of the Police continues to exercise its functions, as is already the case in the case of the DAO. of the Civil Guard.
First of all, The option chosen was to include the legal change in Organic Law 9/2015.of July 28, National Police Personnel Regime, through a PSOE amendment to the Mobility Law processed by the Ministry of Transport led by Óscar Puente.
During an appearance in the Senate on October 24, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska already announced that he was studying how to avoid the retirement of the Police DAO, which he described as “impeccable” and “indisputable”. This fact shows the great interest of the minister in maintaining José Ángel González in the position he reached in 2018.
The second royal decree-law on DANA aid published this Tuesday at the BOE, and which was presented yesterday in Moncloa by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, explains that the DAO of the Police is responsible for “the direction, the promotion and coordination of operational police functions to maintain public order and citizen security.”
“These functions are of particular importance in an emergency situation like that caused by DANA, especially in the Valencian Community, which has determined the deployment of more than 10,000 National Police and Civil Guards, to rescue survivors, guarantee security and restore normality in the streets”, the text continues to emphasize that it wants to “equip” the DAO of the Police with that of the Civil Guard.
The government justifies that José Ángel González continues “with the aim of avoiding this dysfunctional substitution in a situation of extraordinary seriousness” by the DANA, also classified as a “national emergency situation”, which causes the DAO to “stand regain the ability to direct and coordinate the operational functions of the National Police troops on the ground.
Unworthy, according to the PP
The PP spokesperson for the Interior, MP Ana Vázquez, reacted to the decision to include the continuity of the DAO in the second royal decree of aid to DANA, describing Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska as “ unworthy” in a comment on the social network X. (former Twitter).
“Since you could not save your political arm of the police in the Mobility Act, you have now put it in the DANA aid decree; I have never seen someone with so little dignity using victims to save the police DAO,” said Ana Vázquez.
For the JUPOL union, “the endless efforts and research that this government has maintained to find the formulas to maintain the DAO in its position are surprising, while they deny us the formulas to be able to reform the current legislation relating to retirement worthy of the entire national police force.”
“Legislation that already exists and applies to the rest of the police forces in Spain, with the exception of the withdrawal of the National Police and the Civil Guard,” continues the union.
This situation, underlines JUPOL, demonstrates the total lack of will of this government to improve the working conditions of the national police and shows that “Marlaska prefers to equate the retirement of its trusted personnel with that of the entire national police with the regional and local police. strengths.
