Spain says police reinforcement during Catalan referendum cost $118m

The deployment of up to 6,000 extra police in Catalonia during the affluent region's banned independence referendum cost the Spanish government 87 million euros ($118m), the country's interior minister said Thursday, insisting that the blame for the extraordinary fees lay at the feet of the Catalan leadership at the time.


Speaking in the Spanish Senate, conservative Popular Party minister Juan Ignacio Zoido said the money had gone towards the upkeep, accommodation and travel costs incurred by sending National Police and semi-militarized Civil Guard officers to reinforce Catalonia's local Mossos d'Esquadra police force in the days around the Oct. 1 independence referendum branded unconstitutional by Spain's judiciary.
 (EFE/EPA)
18/1/18