The president of the Cercle d'Economia, Jaume Guardiola, elected after an electoral process with two candidates for the first time in the entity's history, met last Monday with his predecessors in office, who make up the advisory board and the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, entity that owns the venue of the forum. The hot point of the meeting was the process of reforming the statutes, more specifically the part referring to its electoral regime, just seven articles (from 35 to 41 of the document), after the process experienced last summer and which led to the vote of the July 12 in which Guardiola beat Rosa Cañadas with 634 votes against 243.
The electoral contest revealed some limitations of the regulations, especially those referring to the proxy vote and its secrecy, which led to complaints, especially from the candidate. In the end, both contenders ended up accepting the proposal to change statutes that never contemplated the possibility of having more than one candidate for the presidency. Recently, Cañadas sent to the members of the forum an advanced document of his proposals. Guardiola, for his part, had already raised that reform in the call for the meeting with the former presidents.
The current charter for the life of the Cercle was drawn up during the mandate of the editor and president of Planeta José Manuel Lara, between 2006 and 2008, at a time when no prominent member of the entity imagined that one day there would be elections with more than one candidate contending for the position.
Until these first elections last summer, the procedure started with a proposal from the outgoing president to the Advisory Board, which gave its approval to the advanced name, after which the vote was a mere formality in which the only stimulus for those proposed was to overcome the number of participants from the previous call. A process, by the way, that of calling the advisory board, which was not included in the statutes either, but which was based on respect for traditional forms, so dear to the members of the entity.
After Monday's meeting, a commission will be created for this purpose, chaired by Salvador Alemany, who already held the same position at the electoral table last July, and who will study the viability of the reform, its scope and the new proposal. It is about forming a work team that will also have the advice of jurists. The Cercle board will be informed about the process at its next meeting and it is expected that the annual assembly of members will give its final approval.
Also present at Monday's meeting were Juan José Brugera, Antón Costas, Antoni Brufau, Pedro Fontana, Joan Molins, Carles Tusquets, Vicenç Oller, Carles Cuatrecasas and Joan Mas Cantí. The absentees were Javier Faus, Josep Piqué and. In addition to the advisory board, the approval of the Cercle Foundation's accounts was also discussed, whose main and almost exclusive source of income comes from the rent it charges the forum for the premises it owns on Provença street in Barcelona.
Guardiola explained to the former presidents the lines of work of his Board during his mandate. In the first place, he plans to approve an upcoming opinion note calling for a deflation of the political debate and the search for agreements and pacts between the main parties.
As detailed, the axes of discussion that the Cercle will promote these next two years will be three: the development of infrastructure and mobility policy; the promotion of driving projects in the industrial field; and those referring to the new energy environment triggered by the war in Ukraine and its relationship with the global economy and geopolitics.
In the first of the areas, Guardiola has chosen from the beginning of his mandate to broaden the focus of his action beyond the expansion of El Prat airport, whose defense is headed by a socio-business commission created by Foment; that weights the set of actions that would be necessary in the context of the State's public investment policy.
Regarding industrial projects, the current president of the Cercle defends that the current global crisis will end up causing a reindustrialization of advanced countries and new technological projects that are further removed from the traditional influence of the State, which offers new opportunities to the Catalan business fabric as long as it operates in an environment of political stability. The Barcelona economic forum will focus its attention on these three points with two cycles of conferences.
Finally, Guardiola also explained that the next annual conference of the Cercle, the culminating point of activity from the point of view of its influence and reflection on public opinion, will be held in Barcelona from May 29 to 31, 2023.
One of the issues to be decided is the identity of the next award for European Construction, created during Faus's previous mandate, and with which the Cercle "wants to recognize the trajectory of those people who, due to their political leadership, the administration , civil society or from thought, have contributed to the construction and integration of Europe, its culture and the presence of the European Union in the world”. The jury will begin its deliberations in a few days with the challenge of having chosen two heavyweights of European politics in the two previous editions: the former president of the ECB and former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der They read.
