The meeting of the Integrated Operational Coordination Center (Cecopi) on October 29, 2024 was not recorded. Or yes, according to the version that the president of the Generalitat, Carlos Mazón, gave in the Emergency center on November 2, as confirmed by elDiario.es from several in-person sources and as stated by the Government delegate in the Community, Pilar Bernabé, who stated this Thursday in an interview in À Punt that Mazón assured Cecopi that all meetings of this organization were recorded “for everyone’s safety.” The key recordings of the decisions and indecisions of that day would be essential for the judicial processes that have started and that will have to resolve possible criminal and civil responsibilities. To this day, from the newly created Department of Emergencies of the Generalitat they defend that the meetings at the Cecopi are not recorded nor are minutes drawn up despite the fact that some audios of an intervention by the Government delegate, Pilar Bernabé, were leaked in one of those meetings.
Mazón himself did not think the same days after the catastrophe. After elDiario.es published the Cecopi minutes of October 31 on November 1, the president of the Generalitat wanted to send a message of calm and a warning to sailors in the event of possible leaks of what was happening in these coordination meetings. Thus, in the meeting that took place at 8 p.m. on Saturday, November 2, Mazón told the members gathered at the Integrated Operational Coordination Center that, “for everyone’s safety, these meetings are being recorded.” Sources from the Presidency of the Generalitat have once again defended that Cecopi meetings are not recorded and that what the delegate says about the meeting “is not like that.”
This security about what was being discussed at Cecopi was of great interest to the president, since, from that moment, he asked all the people who connected by videoconference that all attendees identify themselves by name and entity to which they belong.
According to elDiario.es, the fact that there is no official recording of that meeting, in which momentous decisions were made, could hinder future judicial investigations or parliamentary commissions. The responsibility for recording the Cecopi corresponds to Emergencies, which does not usually keep minutes of the content of the meetings, much less of the resolutions, as these are emergency situations. Which does not exclude that any of the institutions involved in the operational meetings prepare their own documentation (this was the case of the report on the Cecopi on November 1 prepared by the Fire Department of the Valencia City Council to which elDiario.es had access ). “Cecopi is not a collegiate body, so no official notes are made of what happens nor is it recorded,” explain sources familiar with Valencian Emergency management.
But some entities that participate in Cecopi do not believe the official version of Emergencies, even less according to the statements of Carlos Mazón at that meeting. In that sense, the Government Delegation has requested the recordings of the different meetings, which have not been delivered, as Bernabé herself clarified this Thursday.
This newspaper also requested these audios or possible minutes through the Transparency Portal in October. In an official response, the department assures elDiario.es that “referring to the minutes, we inform you that Cecopi is the highest body for emergency management and is a member of the Steering Committee, the Advisory Committee, the Information Cabinet and It is supported by the Emergency Coordination Center of the Generalitat. In this way, the figure of the Cecopi Secretariat does not exist, so there are no minutes of the meetings of the Steering Committee, nor those of the Advisory Committee, nor those of the Information Cabinet.”
Experts in administrative law assure that the minutes, to be valid, must be read in the consecutive session and approved by the attendees, who have the right to change or modify what is included there if they consider that it is not adjusted to reality or to what they said. This reading and approval has never happened, because the members also vary depending on the topic being discussed. Cecopi attendees with the previous Botànic government also assure that minutes or recordings were never made, because there is also no audio system and individual microphones that allow it.
Another thing is that, for security or to have a record, the current Consell would have decided to record exceptionally as Mazón indicated on November 2, although it would be necessary to clarify whether it is a valid recording in the face of a judicial process, since it was not reported in the sessions prior to that day to attendees.
Although there are no official recordings of the meetings, there is an emergency management system called ‘Comcord’, which records operational decisions. In the end, it is a kind of ‘black box’ in which specialized technicians, when they open a case, in an emergency situation, record step by step which organizations involved in the operation must be notified or what decisions are made.
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