The Barcelona Chamber of Commerce closed this Wednesday the deadline for submitting candidacies to the institution's plenary session, which will hold elections on September 20. For the moment, however, only the unitary list presented by the employers' organizations Foment del Treball and Pimec, and the candidacy of Eines de País-Un Pas Més, have passed. The official announcement of all the candidacies will be carried out by the Generalitat between June 19 and 29.
This same Wednesday the independence candidacy of Eines de País-Un Pas Més was presented, which with 52 candidates aspires to a second term with the support of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC). The unitary list of the employers' associations Foment del Treball and Pimec was also made public, which have agreed to share equally the six members that the institution reserves for them (apart from the elections) due to the fact that they are business associations. In addition, two other committees are reserved for the companies with the greatest economic contribution.
Another of the initiatives that has not yet been made official is the candidacy of Josep Santacreu, former director of DKV, promoted from several areas as a consensus option to occupy the presidency of the Chamber, as an alternative to Eines de País.
At the moment, the employers' proposal is clear: a unitary list that grants three votes to Pimec and another three to Foment. The management of the small company has included Miquel Martí, CEO of Moventia; Martina Font, corporate director of the packaging company Font Packaging Group; and Emma Gumbert, founding partner of the Emma Gumbert company. In the case of the board chaired by Josep Sánchez-Llibre, the votes correspond to Anna Cornadó, president of Copisa; Ignasi Marull, managing partner of the multinational PwC; and Eloi Planes, executive president of the multinational in the swimming pool sector Fluidra.
The independence candidacy supported by the ANC presented its proposal under the same premise with which it entered the Chamber of Barcelona in 2019: to promote the productive fabric to achieve a state of its own for Catalonia. “The Chamber is a fundamental tool to protect the industry and the language from a global dynamic in which Catalonia has few friends. For this reason, we are promoting an uninhibited candidacy for independence”, claimed Joel Joan, actor and audiovisual producer who was part of the previous candidacy.
President Mònica Roca and Vice President Toni Fitó explained that the new candidacy has 52 members, 12 more than in the previous elections. Of this total, 23 will be represented by current members and 29 by new members. The president will be elected by vote once the September elections are held. Among the new members are Ernest Pérez-Mas, founder of the telecommunications company Parlem; chef Ada Parellada, owner of the Semproniana restaurant; Joan Puigcercós, former general secretary of ERC and owner of the construction company Planes 2000; Eduard Torres, president of the Turisme de Barcelona consortium and owner of the Duquesa Cardona hotel chain; and Gabi Jené, owner of the housewares firm La Mallorquina and president of the Barcelona Oberta association. In addition, Eines de País ensures that members of the former candidacies of Enric Crous, Ramón Masià and the 50-50 platform have joined.
During the presentation, Roca stated that the candidacy is "transversal", since it represents companies of different sectors and sizes, something that it does flag because it is convinced that it has managed to capture the interest of the Catalan micro-enterprise. With the support of the ANC, Eines de País also aspires to the presidency of the chambers of commerce of the cities of Terrassa and Manresa.
