The General Directorate of the Police intends to fill 17 vacancies in the Special Operations Group (GEO) with applicants who pass the demanding specialization course for admission to this elite unit, in which the physical resistance, mental capacity, sacrifice, perseverance and teamwork of each candidate are tested. There will be two new features compared to the last call: four more places will be put up for competition and the physical fitness tests and the marks that must be achieved to be able to access the aforementioned training are slightly modified.
On September 30, the Police Council approved the drafts of the specific merit competitions for the provision of positions in both the Family and Women Care Unit (UFAM) and the GEO. The calls will now have to be published in the general order so that interested agents can submit their applications, normally within 15 business days.
The last batch of police officers who put on the maroon beret and took possession of their positions in the Special Operations Group did so at the beginning of 2021, months before some began a major mission: the evacuation in Kabul of both the personnel diplomat as well as the Afghan collaborators and their families. They were the 12 agents who passed the XXX specialization course, started before the pandemic was declared and which had to be interrupted for several months due to the health crisis caused by the coronavirus. One of the positions called for was deserted, which gives an idea of the harshness of the selection process.
To be able to access this training, applicants had to previously be qualified – in this order – both in physical and psychotechnical skills and in the personal interview in which the attitude and professional profile of each candidate is evaluated.
There are three eliminatory tests with which the number of officials who begin the training course is lightened, which lasts 30 teaching weeks and includes exercises that are as physically and mentally demanding as soaking for several hours in the early morning in the river at low temperatures. “The Tagus decides”is one of the expressions coined by instructor Pelayo Gayol, as heard in the docuseries GEO. Beyond the limit (Amazon Prime).
The physical fitness tests that the applicants who now apply for the places in the running will have to pass are slightly different from those that, on January 21, 2020, the 240 officials cited by the Training and Improvement Division underwent – among them four women, assigned specifically to Alicante, Melilla, Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Seville – in the facilities of the National Police School.
Marks required in the 2019 call
Thus, the test of endurance It goes from 8,000 to 3,000 meters, a distance that will have to be covered in a maximum time of 12 minutes. This would allow obtaining three points, the minimum grade required in each of the four exercises to be able to move on to the psychotechnics. If it is done in less than 11 minutes, the score is seven points, the maximum possible.
In the of swimming (50 meters freestyle), the mark that has been set is slightly more favorable to the candidates than last time. Specifically, it ranges between 50 seconds (three points) and 31 (seven points), compared to the 40 and 28 seconds in which the range ranged in the 2020 event.
In the exercise of vertical jumpconsisting of a jump from a distance of 20 centimeters from a wall with one arm fully extended, the bar is raised two centimeters – from 53 to 55 centimeters (at the bottom) and from 61 to 63 centimeters (high) – and in the one of pull-ups (palms facing back or forward with the hands-free grip position) two less are required to obtain the minimum score (10 instead of 12) and at least two more (from 16 to 18) to obtain the highest score. The speed-agility circuit that had to be completed in no more than 11.2 seconds has been eliminated.
Marks required in the 2022 call
In the draft of the bases of the XXXI specialization course to access the GEO that was submitted to the Police Council for approval at the end of last month, a test was included that had not been carried out in the previous call: upper body power repetitions in bench press with 70 kilos, with a minimum of eight (three points). As this newspaper has learned, this exercise has finally been abolished.
The Police will put out to tender 17 vacancies in the GEO, four more than in the last call
Created at the end of the 70s, the Special Operations Group constitutes the only specialized unit of the National Police in whose operational section There are currently no women assigned (yes in the support), sex that today represents 16.78% of the Corps officials. The Government of Pedro Sánchez is promoting positive action measures – such as the elimination of the minimum height requirement and the removal of access obstacles in the periods of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum – with the aim that women represent at least 40 % in entry promotions before 2030.
“The full incorporation of women into the security forces will generate more efficient, fairer and closer police organizations, and that will naturally translate into more just, peaceful and prosperous societies,” defended Minister Grande-Marlaska. He calls for initiatives that ensure an “inalienable” principle: “the real and effective equality of women and men” in both the National Police and the Civil Guard.
To be declared suitable for the physical fitness exercises of the next call, applicants for the GEO course will have to obtain a minimum score of 20 points, and must achieve at least three in each of the four tests detailed above. Only those who pass this bar will be able to take the psychotechnical tests, in which the capabilities of this police specialty are measured.
The screening of the personal interview
The last screen is the personal interview, aimed at evaluating the attitudes and professional profile of the applicants. “Having as a reference the characteristics of the job to which one aspires, with the objective of contrasting the data obtained during the process, and being able to determine the suitability or not of the candidate for the performance of the functions of the job,” he details. the draft of the bases.
Officials who are declared fit will have a score that results from adding the average of the physical tests (between 5 and 7 points) and the psychotechnical tests (between zero and 10 points). Not even this guarantees a place in the specialization course, since, due to logistical limitations, a cut-off grade may be set and officials who have passed all the exercises may be left out.
Agents who pass the specialization course and achieve a place in the Special Operations Group must remain in the operational section of said unit for three continuous years. After this period of time, they must pass the revalidation tests, valid for two years. And so on, as also happens in the Police Intervention Units (UIP).
Directed since the beginning of this year by Aragonese commissioner Luis J. Esteban Lezáun, the GEO is the unit of the National Corps that is responsible for carrying out the most committed police operations, such as interventions in robberies, kidnappings or anti-terrorist missions. One of the relevant actions carried out in 2022 was the evacuation of Spaniards from kyiv after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.