The murder of two civil guards in Barbate, After being run over by a drug boat, they focused on a historical claim that civil guards and national police have been making: to be considered a “risky profession.” On March 19, once again, civil guards lost their lives in the exercise of their profession. Once again the members of the GAR were in mourning after two colleagues were run over in Los Palacios (Seville) by a goods truck. These are the most recent cases but not the only ones. The murder of Pedro Alfonso Casado «Perico“, the head of the Special Intervention Unit (UEI), the civil guard who once saved Ortega Lara and was murdered by “El Chiqui” from Santovenia after being hit in the head by a shot fired from the house in the that had entrenched itself.
In 2023 too A 49-year-old civil guard from the Traffic Group in Asturias died when he was on protective duty on a bicycle tour after being hit by a stolen vehicle. Or, in the Campo de Gibraltar area, an inspector from the Algeciras National Police (Cádiz), 33 years old, was hit by a drug dealer's car in a performance that took place in the Getares area. After what happened They had to amputate his arm.
These are just some examples of what it means to practice a profession that the Ministry of the Interior still does not recognize as “risk” and, although it says that “objectively it is,” it continues without putting it on paper.
The Royal Academy of Language defines “risk” as the “contingency or proximity of harm.” Social Security establishes ten groups that it considers to be a “risk profession” based on their “exceptionally painful, dangerous, toxic or unhealthy nature and the fact that they have high rates of morbidity or mortality.” Among them There are workers included in the Mining Statute, aerial work flight personnel, railway workers, artists – singers, dancers and trapeze artists -, bullfighting professionals, firefighters at the service of administrations and public organizations. In addition, local police officers, members of the Ertzaintza, the Mossos and the Foral Police of Navarra are risk professionals; These two groups being the last to achieve the qualification.
Why is a local police officer more at risk than a civil guard? Why are Alejandro Sanz or David Bisbal in more danger in the exercise of their profession than a member of the GAR, the UEI or citizen security?
And it is that The Ministry of the Interior continues to allow the comparative grievance that exists with the rest of the regional and local police forces. The “risk” determined by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security allows those professions considered especially dangerous to advance their retirement and including police and civil guards would mean an extra cost in contributions.
For example, hethe local police They have a reducing coefficient of 0.20 to access the retirement pension. “In no case” will they be able to access at an age less than 5 years than their ordinary retirement age, or 6 years in cases in which 37 years of effective activity and contributions are proven. Local police officers achieved early retirement at the end of 2018, with effect for 2019 onwards, through the approval of Royal Decree 1449/2018.
For the Ertzaintza The required ordinary age will be reduced by a period equivalent to that resulting from applying the reducing coefficient of 0.20 to the years worked, but the interested party will not be able to access the retirement pension at an age of less than 60 years, or less than 59 years. years in cases where 35 or more years of effective activity and contributions are proven.
The Ertzaintza (in 2009) already achieved voluntary early retirement through Additional Provision 20 of the General Social Security Law, with a financing agreement by the State for the annual amount corresponding to the increased contributions due. implemented as a consequence of the loss of contributions due to the advancement of the retirement age and the increase in benefits in the years in which the retirement age is advanced.
The Mossos d'Esquadra They achieve early retirement through an agreement that modifies the General Law of Social Security, through an additional provision twenty bis, added in the General State Budget Law of 2022, like the Foral Police, they indicate from the SUP. This law recognizes that serving for decades as an agent in a police force is enormously demanding, both physically and mentally, that agents must expose themselves to dangerous situations and deal with circumstances that cause stress and that is the reason why officials of the aforementioned police forces, enjoy early retirement without loss of purchasing power.
In January 2022, the same retirement conditions began to be applied in the Mossos as in the rest of the State police, thanks to an agreement by Congress, through an amendment presented by ERC, with 39 million euros for Catalonia; but there was an exception for the National Police and the Civil Guard, which were left out of said agreement.
The PP deputy in the Interior commission, Ana Vazquez, also places emphasis on the importance of reinforcing the “principle of authority”, something that can only be done by the modification of the Penal Code because, at the moment, attacking an agent of authority is “cheap” since some attacks result in a simple “fine of 50 euros.” In 2023, an average of 45 attacks per day (16,762 per year) were recorded, the CEP reported to the EU.
From the platform “Our heart as a flag”, which unites relatives of civil guards and police, they see it as “bloody” that anyone who uses a gun and bulletproof vest or has to be equipped with an anti-explosive suit from head to toe to carry out their work is not yet considered risk profession. The spokesperson for said platform in the Valencian Community, Inmaculada Fuentes, considers that the fact that the Interior says that it has set up a work team to study the recognition of police and civil guards as a “risk profession” means that “they are not going to Do nothing. It is their way of dilating it in time, like when they created the team of pandemic experts, and it did not exist. Furthermore, she warns that a few years ago the drug traffickers “played” cat and mouse with the civil guards trying to avoid being caught, but now, they boast of superior means and seek to cause the greatest damage.
Is there no political will?
►The PP deputy Ana Vazquez assures that the fact that the Ministry of the Interior refuses to recognize police and civil guards as a “risk profession” “It's not for money, it's for political will.” And, as reflected in the BOE, on September 6, 2023, while Pedro Sánchez was negotiating an amnesty for those accused of the process prior to his investiture, two nominative subsidies were granted to the Generalitat for energy transition actions in buildings and in the fleets of Mossos d'Esquadra vehicles.
On the other hand, the PP presented a Non-Law Proposal in the Congressional Interior Commission to recognize police and civil guards as a “risk profession” that was approved although it did not have the support of the PSOE, which abstained.
PSOE sources consulted by LA RAZÓN they assure that They do recognize that the police and civil guards are a risky profession.. “They are not only for the purposes of pension contributions,” they indicate and highlight that for these purposes There is already a working group made in the Ministry of the Interior for the legal change. “What we do not agree with is the umpteenth use that the PP makes” of agents. However, In the European Parliament, the PSOE and its partners voted against granting them this recognition.