Security will develop a plan to promote women’s access to the Ertzaintza

The security Department of the Basque Government will prepare the first “Plan to promote women’s access to the Ertzaintza”, given the “clear and manifest imbalance” in the proportion of women (1046, almost 15% of the workforce) compared to men (5995, 85%) “in the Basque Autonomous Police. The objective of the plan, as explained the Security Advisor, Josu Erkoreka, is to encourage the entry of women from the beginning of the selection process.

Erkoreka has presented this program as well as the general lines of the draft budgets for 2022 at the Committee on the Economy, Finance and Budgets of the Basque Parliament. The Ministry will have a total of 725.1 million euros, 4.8% more than the previous year. The largest items will go to the Arkaute Academy (24.9 million), personnel expenses, which grew by almost 3% (14.8 million euros), as well as the purchase of a helicopter for the Ertzaintza (10 millions).

Regarding the program that will promote equality among the Ertzaintza staff, the Security Minister has specified that will work with Emakunde to “identify and propose concrete positive corrective actions that will be applied in the following opposition competitions for the Basque Police”. Erkoreka has not specified the amount with which they will endow this plan.

The Arkaute Academy and Emergencies will have a budget next year 24.9 million of euros, 1.7% more, with which they will finance, among others, the new joint OPE of the Ertzaintza and the Municipal Police, the return of the students to the classrooms of the Academy after the covid-19, and a new EHU / UPV agreement to incorporate training on Human Rights into training.

In the field of fight against sexist violence The victim protection program will be endowed with 7.9 million euros (with an amount similar to 2021). According to the latest data, 5038 women (257 more than in 2021) receive some type of protection from Ertzaintza. In this area, the EBA project (Emakumeen eta Etxekoen Babesa), which with a budget of 80,000 euros, will promote a shared digital management system so that all police forces have all the files in the same format and the risk assessments of each woman or of their sons and daughters and establish adequate protection based on it.

Likewise, 6.7 million euros will be invested in renovation, rehabilitation and improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings and another 2.6 million in a “novel cybersecurity laboratory to protect Ertzaintza vehicles”. Specifically, they will create two laboratories, one fixed and the other mobile, to detect and respond to cyber threats and cyber vulnerabilities of police vehicles.

Finally, the development of the new Basque Plan of the Department (2023-2028) is foreseen, with a provision similar to that of last year (2.4 million, compared to 2.3 in 2021).