The elections of 22 May will elect representatives of municipalities and councils and will determine the political direction of these institutions, but this direction will not be limited to this, but also to other institutions, in which the direct but indirect election will not be carried out. In fact, both the municipalities and the deputies will appoint their representatives in public companies and public corporations that depend on them or that have the right to be represented. Among these companies, there are boxes.

The creation of the Boxes was supported in due course by the municipalities and the Deputies, who allocated significant amounts of money for its entry into force to be able to function as a financial institution. For this reason, they naturally acquired the right to representation in the governing bodies and continue to do so today. However, if the councils and deputies are changed by hand, the composition of the organs of the savings banks will also change.

The boxes are located among the financial institutions that make up the social economy and that is why we will say that people face capital, because in the anonymous companies there is no social capital that we know and consequently there is no reward: dividends are not distributed.

As there is no representation of social capital in the Fund, its governing bodies shall be composed of: (1) The provincial councils and city councils of the capital shall have 20 representatives; (2) the moneymakers (clients) shall have 43 representatives; (3) the municipalities where the offices of the Fund are located shall have 30 representatives; and (4) the employees of the Fund shall have 7 representatives. They will have a total of 100 general councillors appointed and elected for a four-year term.

In the other bodies, i.e. the Board of Directors and the Control Committee, the four bodies shall be represented and elected by the General Assembly after each body has nominated the corresponding candidates. Therefore, if a political party or coalition is in power in the provincial council and in the city council of the capital, it will certainly have 20 votes and have a high probability of having another 30; and of the remaining 50, it will not be difficult at all to have immediate general councilors. Therefore, the main party (PNV, in Bizkaia) or the possible government coalition (PP-PSE, in Gipuzkoa and Álava) would have easy access to the control bodies of the coffers and, as a result, the economic direction of the coffers would be closer to that of Spain. That’s why the upcoming elections are so important.

The merger of the three Basque boxes had been demanded for years, but political criteria prevented the achievement of this objective. We would have been better off right now and they would have remained the traditional financial institution. The damage has already been done, even if politicians, as always, do not accept their responsibility. How long until like this?

Now, if you don’t push hard enough from the left, there’s a good chance that the traditional task of the boxes will get closer to that of today’s banks. Otherwise, they will avoid the objectives that probably came from their origin and, among them, social actions. And that’s what the real left has to avoid.