Spain's Civil Guard is "contemplating the possibility" of assuming control of the security at Barcelona's El Prat airport "in exceptional circumstances", and in the event of further chaos due to the strike of the workers of Eulen. However, sources of this corps have explained that "so far there is nothing established for them to take on this role".
During the partial strike of Friday, Sunday and Monday, the Civil Guard reinforced its staff with agents at the T1 and T2 terminals in order to ensure compliance with air security regulations. A fact that will be repeated if the assembly of workers this Thursday does not ratify the document of the Catalan government, and decides to maintain the partial strikes on Friday and Sunday and then the indefinite strike from Monday 14th August.
The general director of Regulated Business of Aena, Javier Marín, had already pointed to this possibility in an interview with esRadio on Wednesday, where he also said that this is a service that “Aena contracts and that supports the Civil Guard”.
However, he clarified that “the decision for the Civil Guard to assume this work would not be a decision of Aena nor the Ministry of Fomento (Public Works & Transport), but of the Ministry of Interior”. In fact, for more than fifteen years the service has been subcontracted to a private company, but for decades the Civil Guard was in charge of the security controls.
Many have already voiced that this option should be adopted to avoid further queues. On the one hand, the Minister of Territory and Sustainability, Josep Rull, said that the agents "could do more work at the airport, at the service of citizens, rather than searching for ballot boxes". On the other hand, the president of the Spanish Association of Air Transport Users and Professionals (Asetra), Ignacio Rubio, was more radical, asking the board of directors of Aena to immediately suspend the contract with Eulen and ask for the intervention of the Civil Guard.
Decisive assembly
The option that the Civil Guard intervene in the security control at the airport could be totally ruled out today, depending on what the Eulen workers decide in the assembly they have been summoned to, and where they will have to evaluate the proposal presented by the mediation of the Ministry of Labour, and that has already been accepted by the company's management.