canary islands police guardia civil infrastructure investment

€10.5m for New Police and Guardia Civil Bases in Canaries

Major Security Infrastructure Investment for Canary Islands

The Spanish Council of Ministers has authorised the Ministry of the Interior to invest €10.5 million in the Canary Islands. This funding is for the second phase of the State Security Infrastructure Plan (PLISE), which was launched in 2019. For the archipelago, it will mean the construction of a new local National Police station in Puerto del Rosario, Fuerteventura, a project with a budget of €7.5 million. It will also drive forward the new headquarters for the Guardia Civil’s No. 8 Reserve and Security Group (GRS-8) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which is budgeted at €3 million.

Part of a Historic National Upgrade

These projects are part of the second phase of PLISE, which envisages a total investment of €900 million across the whole country. The Interior Ministry notes this is the largest investment in the reform, refurbishment, or construction of police-use buildings in the democratic era, and work will continue until 2034. The €900 million investment represents a 50% increase over the spending in the first PLISE 2019-2025, which was initially endowed with €600 million.

Of the total, €800 million will fund renovation or new construction projects for buildings attached to the State Secretariat for Security, the National Police, and the Guardia Civil. The remaining €100 million will finance various projects planned in the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla.

Addressing an Ageing Estate

The total portfolio of infrastructure attached to the State Security Forces numbers 3,302 buildings. Of these, 694 are attached to the General Directorate of the Police and 2,608 to the General Directorate of the Guardia Civil. Given the age and obsolescence of a large part of this real estate portfolio, the Council of Ministers approved the 2019-2025 State Security Infrastructure Plan on 18 January 2019.

This initial plan involved an investment of €600 million over seven years for the reform and construction of National Police stations, Guardia Civil barracks, and unique buildings of the State Secretariat for Security. In 2021, this budget was increased by €400 million from the European Next Generation funds, contributed by the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge within the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). These extra funds were to finance works to improve the energy efficiency of refurbished or newly constructed buildings.

A Long-Term Financial Commitment

Once the extraordinary PLISE-II 2026-2034, authorised by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, is executed, the Ministry of the Interior will have invested a total of €1.9 billion since 2019 in the adaptation and improvement of police infrastructure. This figure does not include the projects that both the National Police and the Guardia Civil will have undertaken in those fifteen years using their own budgets.

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