German, Italian and French police officers are going to be on the Balearic beat again this summer, but there will no bobbies. A total of eight foreign police officers were presented today at the central government delegation to the Balearics by the secretary general, Evelio Antich. They will be in contact with the citizen attention units and also be on hand to assist should the respective consulates have any major problems.
This is the third consecutive year that these countries have sent police to the islands to help the local authorities in the case of any major or complicated incidents. They will patrol with the Guardia Civil, and the idea of the scheme, which this year continues until 30 September, is to increase security and improve international cooperation in the fight against global crime.
The foreign officers will also be on hand to assist at incidents involving fellow compatriots because, quite often, being able to communicate in the same language can reassure a victim and help to ease the tension. This summer, the officers will be based in Cala Ratjada and Soller in Majorca, Santa Eularia in Ibiza and Formentera.
The two primary roles of the foreign police are crime prevention and citizen attention, and the scheme has functioned extremely well in the past. Last year, two British police officers came to Majorca and Ibiza for two weeks.