page_title: Mossos d'Esquadra
section_title: Current role
hierarchical_section_title: Mossos d'Esquadra / Current role
caption_attribution_description: English: Helicopter of Catalan police (Mossos d'Esquadra) Català: Helicòpter dels Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalunya)
context_page_description: The Mossos d'Esquadra are the police force of Catalonia, largely replacing the Spanish Policía Nacional and Guardia Civil.
  They trace their origins back to squads formed in 1719.
context_section_description: The Mossos d'Esquadra have now replaced Spain's Guardia Civil and National Police within the territory of Catalonia. This process of substitution began in 1994 and was completed in 2008. In November 2005, the Mossos took full duties in the city of Barcelona.
  The Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia (Catalan: Estatut d'Autonomia de Catalunya) defines that the scope of action of the Generalitat Police Force – Mossos d'Esquadra is the whole of the Catalan territory, and states that it exercises all the functions of a police force in the following fields:
  Public safety and public order.
  Administrative policing, including that deriving from State regulations.
  Judicial policing and criminal investigation, including the various forms of organised crime and terrorism, in the terms established by law.
  The Mossos d'Esquadra are a police force of the Spanish state placed under the authority of the Generalitat de Catalunya within the territory of the autonomous community of Catalonia. The Policia Nacional and the Guardia Civil, on the other hand, are commanded directly by the Spanish ministry of the interior. They keep some officers in Catalonia to support the fight against terrorism, to handle identity documents, immigration and other limited responsibilities of the central government. However, when there was a dispute between the governments of Catalonia and of Spain about Catalonia becoming independent, and the Catalonian government called a referendum for 1 October 2017, the Spanish government sent thousands of members of the national Guardia Civil and Spanish National Police to Barcelona and Girona with the intention of preventing voting, as the referendum was deemed illegal by the Spanish Constitutional Court.
  The Mossos are trained in the Institut de Seguretat Pública de Catalunya (Public Safety Institute of Catalonia), which also trains local police officers.
caption: Helicopter logo of the Mossos d'Esquadra
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Helic\u00f2pter dels Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalunya)", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:02 21:57:25", "Image Artist": "1997", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "378", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2615", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "798", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "480"}