If you want to make a complaint you have to speak Spanish

A cut in the number of interpreters means that non-Spanish speakers are now unable to place a denuncia or make a complaint in most of the Police Stations on the Costa de Sol. El Mundo says that the National Police are telling foreign callers, ‘I’m sorry, sir, with these cuts I cannot say anything else. We cannot help you unless you bring an interpreter’. The paper claims people are being turned away even if they want to report a robbery or aggression, and that it is same trying to so in person or over the phone. An interpreter company was taken on last May to give a national phone service, but this has gone bankrupt. Tourist bosses have been putting forward ideas to solve the problem which they say is damaging the tourist image which it says is returning to previous times. One of them is to use language students as partners. Thankfully, when a tourist is robbed now they usually go to their hotel receptionist who can organise someone to go with them to the police. Twenty years or so ago, that was quite a common sight and it’s becoming so once again. Under Spanish Law, State Security Forces have now requirement to speak a second language.