The PP and police unions call it “unworthy” that the Government takes advantage of the DANA decree to maintain the DAO

The current number 2 of the Police, José Ángel Gonzálezturns 65 next month. Given the urgency, the calendar has ‘forced’ the Executive to address its continuity, an open secret in the Corps, in the DANA aid decree, whose main lines were detailed yesterday by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez.

According to the text, the Government justifies the decision to keep the DAO in office because, in this “national emergency situation“, it would be “highly dysfunctional to proceed with the replacement of the person, at the head of the Deputy Operational Directorate, who is directing and coordinating on the ground the operational functions of the National Police personnel.” He also defends that this puts an end to the comparative grievance that supposed that the DAO of the Civil Guard could continue in the position after turning 65 while the Police officer was obliged to retire.

The Government’s move, although predictable, has generated discontent in police unions who see the modification as a “grievance” within the Corps. From the Jupol union they have called it “unworthy” that the Government takes advantage of the decree to extend the retirement age of the DAO and have assured that the movement “It is generating a lot of discontent in the police leadership», since the rest of the members of the Governing Board will have to retire at the maximum age of 65 years.

They have also criticized that this decision contrasts with the “total lack of will” to improve the working conditions of national police officers. In the opinion of the union organization, the modification shows that the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, «prefers to match the retirement of its trusted personnelof the DAO, to the retirement conditions of the Deputy Operational Director of the Civil Guard, than that of all national police officers with the regional and local police forces.

«The efforts and the endless search that this Government has maintained for the formulas to be able to keep the Deputy Operational Director in his position, beyond the retirement age, are surprising, while they deny us the formulas to be able to reform the current related legislation. with the dignified retirement of all national police officers. A legislation that already exists and applies to the rest of the police forces in Spain, except for the retirement of the National Police and the Civil Guard,” Jupol has stated.

A “premium retirement”

Also from the Spanish Police Confederation (CEP) they have denounced the “shameful”, “reprehensible” and “rejectable” initiative of the department led by Marlaska. The organization has deepened the comparative grievance that the measure represents with respect to the rest of the Corps, since while the DAO has a “premium retirement“, the more than 74,000 remaining police officers “will continue to have to lose hundreds of euros when they retire at the age of 65.”

Likewise, they have stressed that with this legal modification “we are violating the right to equality and it is being done in a flagrant, provocative manner and with contempt for prudence”, while emphasizing that justifying this change by equating it to what has already happened in the Civil Guard since 2014 “constitutes an exercise in corporate provocation, since a error cannot be justified by another prior error.

Assume the national emergency

After hearing the news, reported yesterday by this newspaper, the Popular Party has reproached the Executive for having “politically used the greatest national tragedy that Spain remembers” to “sneak in” the legal modification, provided for in the fifth final provision of the royal decree law that The BOE publishes this Tuesday, which allows the DAO to be maintained.

Those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo have criticized that using an aid decree to guarantee the “shielding” of a police command that they consider “akin” to Minister Marlaska “It is an insult to the victims and a deception to the Congress of Deputies,” because – popular sources point out – “at no time did the Executive convey this intention.”

Furthermore, they have highlighted that in its decision, reflected in the BOE, the Government “explicitly assumes the national emergency» -the decree speaks of a «national emergency situation»- which at the time he refused to decree to assume sole command in the management of DANA. “The victims deserve to only think about their future and to see that all aid for reconstruction is mobilized as quickly as possible,” those same sources have concluded.