By George Potter
Earlier this year, the Spanish Interior Ministry, the ministry that supervises the country’s public police services and the private security activities, modified its legislation covering the private security sector, with the incorporation of the new Article 39 which states:
“Only authorized enterprises can perform the operations involving the installation and maintenance of components of electronic security survaillance, intrusion control and fire detection signalling systems that are communicated to central control and supervision stations”.
“In regards to installation and maintenance, these installations will be considered the same as control centrers or control points of video-vigialance systems, understanding as such points those where security and vigilance systems of a building or establishment are centralized and are obligated to be supervised by personnel of private security entities”.
This legislation in effect bars the several hundred
FIRE PROTECTION installers and maintainers in the country from doing business for existing and potential clients whose security and safety detection and signalling systems must be supervised by security guards. The new law permits exclusively the authorization of security companies to perform these activities. Some 30 years ago, many security companies got involved in the fire protection installation business, often with dubious results. However, only one fire protection company was known to have official authorization to provide security guard services during these 3 decades (that company closed down nearly 20 years ago).
Neither the national fire protection installers association, TECNIFUEGO – AESPI, nor the Ministry of Industry which controls the fire protection sector through its Reglamentation of Fire Protection Systems (RIPCI) were neither consulted nor informed about this new legislation. An indepth analysis of the new legislation gives the impression that the Interior Ministry has pulled a custom designed protective measure for the security sector in detriment to the
fire safety sector. The global economic crisis has seriously affected both sectors, and this new law clearly places the fire safety enterprises in yet graver difficulties.
Spain historically has been more security prone than safety conscious. There are two distinct national police entities; the Guardia Civil, a paramilitary force with innumerable competencies (public order, customs, criminal investigation, national highway patrol, embassy security and terrorism among the many others), while the Policía National also operate in parallel activities (eexcept traffic control), often covering each other and at times colliding head-long. Several of the autonomous regions also have their own police forces as well as the majority of the country’s 8,000-plus municipalities with their local or municipal police. Fire safety however, has only received national reglamentation and legislation since somewhere around 1970, often in conflict with security laws.
What remains to be seen in the immediate future is what direction the fire protection sector will take. The representatives from the private security unit of the Interior Ministry who recently explained this legislation to the general assembly of TECNIFUEGO tried to convince the fire safety specialists present that the modification is intended to comply with European Community directives which supposedly state similar conditions. The representatives confirmed that this new legislation in effect excludes the fire protection firms from installing an maintaining security supervised fire detection installations, under the threat of sanctions of as much as 30,000 Euros – some $40,000.
