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

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

The proposal put on the table last week by the executive led by Santacreu generated friction within the corporation; a rift that has been staged with 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 executive approved the reform. The employers' association of small and medium-sized enterprises, Pimec, has also done so. Despite the calculations that were made from the floor, who assured that "with the representatives they have" the two critical groups could "tip the scales", have not managed to gather a majority to overturn the expansion.

The measure approved this Thursday, that is to say, does not modify the composition of the current council. The eight silver chairs additional ones will not be added until the next term, with the parliamentary elections scheduled for 2027. The Chamber defends the reform, assuring that it stems from "the will to achieve balanced and proportional representation of the self-employed, small, medium, and large businesses within the corporation's highest governing body".

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

The Chamber's executive presented the measure last week, with the aim of expanding the seats granted for economic contributions from the current two to about ten and, internally, encountered the frontal opposition of the majority of SME representatives and Eines de País. It was the independentists, in fact, who reduced the "silver seats" to two, down to the 14 that existed previously. Currently, the two paid seats in the entity's plenary are occupied by Criteria, the investment arm of "La Caixa", and the RACC. The two companies that have accessed the plenary under these conditions pay a total of 75,000 euros per year.

A "divided" plenary"

The approval of the reform, as Eines de País representative Toni Fitó recalls, may "condition the composition" of the next plenary session, given that voters will elect eight fewer members than in the previous chamber elections. Pimec also opposes the reform: the 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 carried out 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 from both Eines and the SMEs' 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 assures, in statements to ARA, that the tie registered 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. In Fitó's view, in fact, the country's corporations "are benchmarks and drivers" of the economy. They recall, however, that there are already large companies that have been elected to positions distributed by suffrage, such as Banc 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, large companies are underrepresented" and consider the "silver seats" a "mechanism to guarantee adequate representation of larger companies" in the governing bodies.