The EU will urgently process two requests to protect guards and police with the vote against the socialists and their partners

Pablo Herraiz Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, February 15, 2024-7:26 p.m.

Despite the refusal of the

Party of European Socialists

and its partners, on March 19, two requests

will begin to be

urgently

processed to create directives that protect the State

security forces and bodies

. Following an initiative by the

Spanish Police Confederation (CEP), this past Wednesday the

European Parliament

voted on

whether it was processed urgently or not. The

European People's Party (EPP),

ECR

(conservatives) and

Renew

(liberals) voted in favor

. Thanks to the affirmative votes of these three groups, on March 19 a representative of the CEP will go to

Brussels

to defend the requests.

The first of the directives requested by this police union consists of classifying attacks on officers as a European crime, which in our Penal Code is known as

an attack against a law enforcement officer.

If this is achieved, the union's intention is to establish minimum sentences much higher than the current ones

to avoid impunity.

It is inevitable to think about what happened just a few days ago in the port of

Barbate,

when drug traffickers murdered two civil guards after a long period of harassment of the zodiac they were riding. "If they didn't have that feeling of impunity, because

those who attack police and guards never go to jail,

perhaps this would not have happened," explained the agent who will defend this petition next month.

The second of the directives requests that

the National Police or the Civil Guard

be declared a risky profession

. In this case, also if it were approved in the future, the directive would be mandatory in all EU member countries, so the agents of each State could be better protected.

The most surprising thing perhaps was the

negative vote of the Party of European Socialists,

to which the

PSOE belongs, and also its related partners, even more so after what happened last week and the very precarious situation in which the

Ministry of the Interior

has been left.

Spanish. One of the arguments for refusing to urgently process these requests for directives, which if not done so could lead to waits of months, or perhaps a year, is that

those who had made the requests

were accused of "opportunism"

, as if They would like to take advantage of last week's event to ask for legislative change.

However, it has nothing to do with the Barbate event, since the Spanish Police Confederation

presented these petitions in December of last year.

The reason for requesting it is the scandalous data of attacks on authority agents, and only counting national police and civil guards, that is, without counting local or regional police.

According to the figures, managed by the SEP and provided by the Ministry of the Interior, in 2022 police officers and guards received an average of

1,000 attacks per month.

A year later, and only with the data available until August 2023, attacks against law enforcement agents had increased by 40%:

1,400 attacks per month.

"We did not have much hope that the current government would want to legislate in favor of police and guards, that is why we have turned to Europe, since the directives are mandatory for all member states. Furthermore, if we can also achieve greater security for our colleagues from other countries, we will all benefit," explained this same agent.