The independence movement does not like it because it confirms what was already demonstrated in the autumn of 2017: that economic power does not agree with the right to decide to declare an independent Catalonia. If the banking operation comes to fruition, Catalonia sees how the weight in the territory of the first financial entity will be diluted, which will also consolidate its headquarters in Valencia after CaixaBank decided to leave Barcelona as a result of the independence referendum.
The Government, through the Republican Vice President Pere Aragonès, hastened to request that the headquarters return to Catalonia, although when the financial institution carried out its transfer, the Executive not only downplayed it, but also disdained the bank’s actions. Now they appreciate how, not only will the main bank be located outside of Catalonia, but the Generalitat is not part of the operation, nor can it be, which shows to what extent the political and economic power of Catalonia has diminished considerably.
While the president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Joan Canadell, shows his anger at what he considers a new step in the centralization of power in the State. The Chamber, one of the thirteen members that make up the Board of Trustees of the Fundació Bancaria La Caixa, will oppose the merger operation between the Catalan entity and Bankia, as announced by its president and pro-independence businessman.
The head of the chamber institution has made an appeal to the other founding entities of the historic Caixa d’Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona, such as Foment del Treball, the Ateneu Barcelonès, the Institut Agrícola Català de Sant Isidre and the Societat Econòmica Barcelonesa d’Amics del País, so that they also go against this merger, alleging their origins in defense of the social rights of pensioners.
In any case, the Chamber has a symbolic presence on the Foundation’s board of trustees, which is chaired by Isidre Fainé and the vice-presidency falls to Juan José López Burniol. The institution is represented by a member of its Executive Committee and president of its Good Practices committee and of its Legal and Fiscal Affairs committee, the lawyer Antoni Fitó.
In his Twitter account, the president of the Chamber of Commerce has warned that creating a new entity through the concentration reinforces the oligopoly situation of the banking sector in Spain and alerts “”. Canadell adds that it will be one more step to concentrate power in Madrid and move away from the Catalan origins.
The Board of Trustees
The board of trustees is the highest governing body of the ‘la Caixa’ Banking Foundation and is in charge of appointing the general manager. Currently, its members are Salvador Alemany, César Alierta, Shlomo Ben-Ami, Luis Carreras del Rincón (Spanish Red Cross), Isabel Estapé, Antoni Fitó (Chamber of Commerce), Eugenio Gay (Cáritas Diocesana de Barcelona), Javier Godó, Francesc Homs, Jaime Lanaspa, Asunción Ortega, Artur Santos and Javier Solana.
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