He BNG wants its own regional police. That simple and that concrete. He made this clear in this year’s regional elections and reflected it in his electoral program, in which he proposed the creation of a “comprehensive Galician Police model”, which would have as priorities “the protection of the rights and freedoms of people and with an organizational structure adapted to the reality of Galicia”.
However, this plan went further and included the “progressive replacement of theNational Police and Civil Guard in their functions judicial police, traffic police, citizen security and public order, and administrative police.” Functions that would be assumed by the “new” Galician Police. It should be noted that, given the complaints that warned that the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) tried to “throw out” the Security Forces and Corps of the State of Galiciathe training denied it.
We must not forget that they were in the middle of the electoral campaign. However, His “denial” clashed squarely with his electoral programin which they spoke of this “progressive substitution” of police and civil guards in favor of a Galician Police. Furthermore, it was committed to promoting the approval in the Congress of Deputies of a “Proposal for an Organic Law on the transfer of powers in matters of traffic and road safety.”
A Galician-style Ertzaintza
Because its objective is no other, and this is what the opposition points out, than to achieve a kind of Mossos d’Esquadra or Galician-style Ertzaintza. “There is little left of the BNG’s mask of false moderation in the elections,” denounced Paula Prado, PP deputy in the Galician Parliament. And his “already known intention to throw out the Civil Guard and the National Police of Galicia”, he pointed out, is combined with the “imposition of Galician in the barracks”.
Thus, linguistic immersion sneaks in as a new element to take into account in this story and it does so through an amendment to a non-law Proposal of the PP to “promote certain measures to support the Civil Guard and reinforce it, specifically in the Galician countryside, as well as renew and improve its barracks”. Specifically, and at the initiative of the BNG deputy Iago Tabarés, the training requires that “facilitation and promotion of use and normalization of the use of the Galician language in the Galician Security Forces and Corps, considering themselves as qualified requirement or merit to obtain a destination“.
A request that, in the words of Paula Prado, reveals the true intentions of the BNG: “They intend to impose Galician as a requirement to cover positions in the Civil Guard, monolingualism and linguistic immersion. Don’t count on us for that.” Neither with that nor with your other objective, “eject the National Police and the Civil Guard from Galicia”.
The contradictions of BNG
However, at this point there is a fact that draws attention. On the one hand, they propose replacing the civil guards with autonomous agents (progressively), but on the other, they demand in their amendment “a proposal to improve the necessary resources and means for the provision of the service, as well as the socio-labor conditions of the workers”.
Likewise, they request a report on the “organization, territorial and functional necessary to guarantee adequate provision in Galicia of the services attributed to the Security Forces and Corps, as well as the number of personnel necessary to serve them”.
And as an example, the Carballo City Council, governed by the BNG, which has elevated the Xunta your request for a National Police stationas well as the increase in the Civil Guard workforce. Both requests were approved unanimously by the plenary session, but the request to create a Galician Police was not, which had the abstention of the PP and the votes in favor of the BNG and the PSOE.