The Spanish interior ministry has not allowed the Catalan government to buy a single bullet for its police force the Mossos d'Esquadra in the whole of 2017, so that ammunition stocks which are used up in training and day-to-day actions have not been replenished.
In September this year, the Catalan government had already made a complaint about the blockade at the Spanish border of several loads of long-barrelled firearms, as well as five million cartridges, which were pending approval from the Civil Guard's Arms and Explosives Intervention Centre in order to be able to enter Catalonia. At that time, shortly after the terrorist attacks on Barcelona and Cambrils, Catalan interior minister Joaquim Forn expressed his concern that a situation could be reached in which "police officers might be on the streets without any ammunition".
Now, according to Spanish daily El Mundo, sources in the Spanish ministry have confirmed that the Catalan government has indeed been unable to resupply its police with ammunition throughout this year, although other bodies, such as the Basque Ertzaina police have had no problems in equipping themselves.
Catalonia's interior ministry made a request for ammunition in 2016, under the normal system, whereby permission is sought from Spain's Secretary of State for the Interior. Although the permission was granted and several companies were awarded the resulting supply contracts, the Civil Guard blocked the licenses required to import the material and transport it across Spanish territory, in a case of administrative silence that effectively deactivated the permits given.
Companies affected
According to the El Mundo story, the Civil Guard's inaction caused damage to companies such as Beretta-Benelli, which had a consignment of 1.5 million bullets stopped at the border with France, and was thus required to pay storage expenses. Ministerial sources quoted did not provide any explanation for the blockade, but did reject any association of this fact with the political situation in Catalonia relating to the independence referendum on 1st October - an event that was violently repressed by action taken under the responsibility of the same Spanish government ministry.