The signing of José Luis Trapero as general director of the Police was an electoral asset used by Salvador Illa in the Catalan campaign. In fact, the current president announced it in a candidates’ debate on TV3 in May 2024. Such was the importance and charisma of the police officer who skillfully led the Mossos d’Esquadra during the complex days of the Rambla attack and the independence referendum in 2017. At the time, he was idolized by many citizens who placed flowers on the cars of the Catalan police and later was repudiated for admitting in the Supreme Court trial that he had a plan to arrest members of the Govern if required by the judicial authority. He had to endure a trial accused of collaboration with the October 1 referendum from which he was acquitted. When ERC accessed the Generalitat, he was dismissed as head of the Mossos.
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Now, two years later, Trapero has decided to leave. He was in a more political than police position and his opinions have not always coincided with those of the Interior Minister, Núria Parlon. It is evident that he is a police officer with strong convictions and perhaps the political role requires a flexibility and adaptability that he lacks. The positive aspect is that Trapero’s replacement will be Ferran López, a brilliant police officer who already substituted him when taking on the challenge of leading the Mossos after the application of article 155.
Even so, it is not good news for Illa, who is seeing how in a short time he has lost several senior officials of the Govern who leave their positions with the euphemism of “for personal reasons.” Very recently, the secretary general of the Department of Interior itself, Tomás Carrión, also resigned. It already took Illa longer than expected to form his government and he faced more than one rejection. It is not easy to make the leap to politics today.
However, the coincidence of these resignations and some crises that the Govern’s management drags in specific areas such as education, social services, or infrastructure invite Illa to give a new boost to his executive, now that he completes two years in office and already enjoys his first budgets.
