The City Council of Premià de Dalt (Barcelona) has announced today that it has terminated the contract “by mutual agreement” with the company Desokupa —dedicated to extrajudicial property evictions— through which the organization that carries out controversial evictions would advise the local police on how to act before “mafia” squats. Premià de Dalt is governed by a coalition made up of nine councilors from Junts and two from the PSC and it is precisely the latter who are responsible for the citizen security and coexistence portfolio. The PSC has exerted pressure and influence to cancel the contract, according to party sources.
The Premia de Dalt government team -supported by 11 councilors against the opposition made up of three from ERC, two from CUP and one from Ciudadanos- signed a consultancy contract last week (which cost 3,000 euros plus VAT and was going to last one year) with the controversial founder of Desokupa, Daniel Esteve, close to Vox. The contract signed by Mayor Josep Triadó (JxCat) did not provide for the performance of Desokupa staff but only advice to the police to deal with “criminal” occupations.
After the contract was made public, criticism of Triadó’s decision began to fall. They rained down on him from his own party and the PSC raised their hands to their heads when they verified that their own formation had hired Desokupa. Laura Borràs, president of Junts, stated that she did not share this type of “hiring”. “Junts’ commitment is to combat illegal occupation mafias by promoting reforms to put an end to these illicit practices,” she said. “We are working to combat these occupations with new tools that must be approved by Parliament.” Carles Bosch, regional president of Junts al Maresme, disagreed with Borràs and defended the mayor’s initiative. “Nobody knows better than the mayor of Premià de Dalt what is happening in Premià de Dalt. Time will tell if it was the right decision or not.”
Esteve grew again in the face of the controversy and on social networks he described Triadó as “brave” and announced that in the case of Premià de Dalt “he invites the house” and would not charge the city council a penny for the advisory work. This Monday the mayor announced that he was terminating the contract with Desokupa. Even so, he has left the door open for those in charge of carrying out extrajudicial evictions to advise the Premià police.
“After the person in charge of the Desokupa company publicly stated his desire not to charge the Consistory for the contracted advisory service. Having consulted the municipal legal services, the way to formalize it is for Desokupa to present an instance in which it communicates its wish to terminate the contract in question and for the Premià de Dalt City Council to accept it. In this instance, the company will also offer to advise the Local Police for free when it deems it appropriate in the face of a mafia occupation, according to the criteria of this police force, ”highlights the City Council statement. Currently there is no property occupied by the “mafias” in Premià de Dalt and last year there were only three cases.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya at Facebook Y Twitteror sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
What affects the most is what happens closest. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
#Premià #Dalt #terminates #contract #Desokupa #asks #free #advice