The Director General of the Guardia Civil, María Gámez, at the presentation of the security plan in the rural world this Friday in Villasana de Mena (Burgos).
Security in so-called empty Spain continues to be a concern for the Guardia Civil as there are not enough troops to tend to the more than 1,900 barracks in Spain, many of which remain closed or unguarded. Of the 80,000 agents the panel has, about 35% are assigned to rural areas, according to the panel. The Director General, María Gámez, presented this Friday in Villasana de Mena (Burgos) – where the rehabilitation of the barracks has recently started – the Rural Security Plan of the Armed Institute, competent in this field, with four not very concrete measures These include “possible Incentives for guards deployed in these areas”.
This aims to overcome the perennial and thorny hurdle of facing the mayors of cities where security—besides fixating on the small population they tend—relies on keeping their barracks minimally active. The Home Office’s project (Plan for Territorial Redistribution) – advanced years ago and still unrealized – to group posts so that there are at least 20 soldiers per quarters, remains on the back burner again. Meanwhile, with these four actions, Interior is trying to “improve Civil Guard service and response in areas of demographic decline.”
The “plan of action,” which is more like a statement of intent, is to “expand the appointment system before filing complaints at the various Civil Guard posts to avoid waiting times and crowds and improve awareness of citizenship.” There are many positions where there is a short schedule, one or two days a week to be able to file a grievance and many others where you have to call directly a phone posted on the barracks door, so that the agents come (if they can) to take the complaint.
According to the message sent by the Guardia Civil this Friday, they want to “promote coordination with the local police, particularly in the context of protecting victims of gender-based violence”. And it aims to “bolster the specialized Civil Guard response at the territorial level with the ROCA teams to prevent on-the-spot robberies, in addition to the Cyber Fraud and VioGén teams.”
The plan doesn’t clarify what kind of reinforcements, in what numbers, or where those troops will come from because “it’s being drafted and concrete things are being outlined,” Armed Institute sources say.
With the economic incentives for the security guards deployed in rural areas, one wants to “make a contribution to rooting in the territory in addition to the additional provision of technical means, equipment and mobility”. Among the improvements for these agents, according to other Armed Institute sources, the possibility of giving them more points for choosing a later target is also being considered.
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In his presentation, Gámez praised the Civil Guard’s work in rural areas as “a fundamental element to address the challenges posed by the depopulation of the areas”. Currently, the site is “the only reference in terms of security” in more than 77% of Spanish municipalities, with 585 sites in areas with a density of less than 12.5 inhabitants per square km, according to Armed Institute data.
goal of the legislature
At the inauguration of the current and first Director General of the Guardia Civil in January 2020, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska also highlighted the 2,000 rural Guardia Civil units, the “backbone” of Spain, and he promised to “take care of this operation” as one of the Objectives to be achieved in this legislature “Rural units of great value in the face of the demographic challenge,” he said, ready to receive them “with the necessary troops.”
On that occasion, Gámez stressed that his plan, which has yet to be finalized, aims to “raise safety standards on the country’s roads and territories, address social and territorial cohesion and move towards digitization and sustainability “. According to the director, 100 measures to improve the infrastructure are planned for 2022 and 2023, totaling 200 million euros. And she recalled that in this year 2022 “1,671 places have been announced for the opposition to the NCOs and Guards scale means a replacement rate of 125%”.