The Chamber of Commerce approves by a narrow margin the expansion of the 'silver chairs'

BarcelonaThe plenary session of the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, meeting this Thursday, has narrowly approved the reform proposed by the executive committee to expand from two to ten the paid vocal seats granted by greater voluntary contribution, the so-called silver chairs. The body was completely divided in the session, with a tie of 29 votes in favor of the measure and 29 against. The decision was unblocked by the casting vote of the president, Josep Santacreu.

The proposal put on the table last week by the committee led by Santacreu generated friction within the corporation; a rift that was dramatized by the final arithmetic of the body. The 21 members who were part of the pro-independence candidacy Eines de País have declared their opposition since the reform was approved. So has the association of small and medium-sized enterprises, Pimec. Despite the calculations made by the plenary, which assured that "with the representatives they have" the two critical groups could "tip the scales", they have not managed to gather a majority to overturn the expansion.

The measure approved this Thursday, it should be noted, does not modify the composition of the current plenary session. The eight additional silver chairs will not be added until the next term, with the chamber elections scheduled for 2027. The Chamber defends the reform, stating that it stems from "the will to achieve a balanced and proportional representation of the self-employed, small, medium, and large companies within the corporation's highest governing body".

Once the expansion of paid vocal seats comes into effect, the distribution of the 60 vocal seats that make up the body will change. Specifically, the chamber seats granted by the vote of employers in the demarcation will decrease from 52 to 44. The 10 silver chairs will be added, as well as the six vocal seats that are currently awarded to the most representative employers' associations in the country, Foment del Treball and Pimec.

The Chamber's executive committee presented the measure last week, with the aim of expanding the vice-presidencies granted for economic contributions from the current two to about ten and, internally, met with the frontal opposition of the majority of SME representatives and Eines de País. It was the independentists, in fact, who reduced the silver chairs, until the 2:00 PM that there were previously. Currently, the two paid seats in the full session of the entity are occupied by Criteria, the investment arm of "La Caixa", and the RACC. The price set for these chairs is 75,000 euros per year.

A "divided" plenary session

The approval of the reform, as recalled by the representative of Eines de País, Toni Fitó, may "condition the composition" of the next plenary session, given that voters will choose eight fewer members than in the previous chamber elections. Pimec also opposes the reform: the employers' association of small and medium-sized enterprises insists that it "will continue to defend that the best way to guarantee balanced representation is through suffrage," in line with the analysis of the issue they have made during the week. Despite the result, the employers' association led by Antoni Cañete maintains that it "will continue working for a strong, plural, and useful Chamber for the entire business fabric." The assessments of both Eines and the SME entity, therefore, clash with the demand for balance and proportionality that they maintain from the Chamber.

Fitó, however, warns that the result leaves many issues unresolved. The Eines representative states, in declarations to ARA, that the tie recorded this Thursday "demonstrates that the Chamber is absolutely divided on a crucial issue for the representation of the country's economic sectors." A feeling shared by voices close to Catalan small and medium-sized enterprises, who warn that "presenting this result as a clear victory is, at the very least, a debatable interpretation that invites more careful reflection" regarding the "silver seats.

Both Eines and Catalan small and medium-sized enterprises have denied being against the access of large companies to the Chamber's plenary session. In Fitó's view, in fact, the country's corporations "are benchmarks and drivers" of the economy. However, they recall that large companies have already been elected to the positions distributed by suffrage, such as Banco Sabadell or Ficosa; as well as through employer assignment seats, for example. Nevertheless, from the Chamber they argue that "in the current composition of the plenary session, large companies are underrepresented" and consider the silver seats"a mechanism to guarantee adequate representation of larger companies" in the governing bodies.