The Piraeus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI) participated in the meeting held at the Ministry of Development on the reform of chamber legislation, presenting its proposals.
The memorandum does not merely aim at certain technical improvements to chamber legislation. It raises a fundamental institutional question: what is the true identity of the Chambers today, and whether the current legislative framework remains compatible with it.
According to the relevant announcement, the starting point of the discussion must be absolutely clear. Chambers of Commerce are not public agencies. They are not agencies of the state administration. They are legal entities under public law organized as associations and bodies of specialized professional self-governance.
This has been their historical, institutional, and legal identity from Law 2081/1992 through the currently in-force Law 4497/2017. These are organizations governed by elected bodies, operating with their own resources derived from the business community, and subject to oversight based on legality rather than expediency.
However, in recent years, there has been a steady shift toward a regime of administrative and fiscal integration. Rules and mechanisms designed for public administration bodies are now also being applied to the Chambers of Commerce, without any prior change to their legal status.
The result is the creation of a hybrid and internally contradictory system. Chambers of Commerce are called upon to function as development institutions, to support entrepreneurship, and to intervene in support of the local and national economy, but at the same time they are subject to restrictions and controls that often hinder or even prevent them from fulfilling this role.
This contradiction becomes even more apparent when we compare the Chambers of Commerce with other public-law entities organized as associations. The Bar Associations, Medical Associations, Pharmaceutical Associations, and Notary Associations enjoy much greater administrative, financial, and managerial autonomy, even though they exercise powers that are clearly of a more public nature.
They grant licenses to practice their professions, exercise disciplinary authority, and make decisions that directly affect the professional standing of their members. Nevertheless, the State has explicitly recognized and enshrined their autonomy. There is no objective reason for the Chambers to be treated less favorably.
At the same time, a clear distinction must be made between the specific public responsibilities assigned to the Chambers—such as the General Commercial Registry (GEMI) and commercial publicity—and their overall economic and development functions. The assignment of specific public duties cannot lead to the complete transformation of a public-law entity organized as an association into a state administrative body. On the contrary, the public mission and self-governance must coexist, just as they do in other professional bodies governed by public law.
For this reason, we propose a comprehensive reform of chamber legislation, clearly reestablishing the institutional identity of the Chambers as public-law legal entities in the form of associations and as bodies of specialized professional self-governance. This reform is not an institutional innovation. On the contrary, it follows the same legislative approach that the legislature has already adopted for other similar public-law entities organized as associations, as mentioned above.
The Hellenic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (EBEP) has proposed, by sending relevant documents to the Ministry of Development, the necessity of optional implementation of electronic voting, as well as the use of absentee voting in the upcoming chamber elections (Ministerial Decision No. 5204/2021 – Government Gazette 5244/B/11-12-2021 Operation of the “ZEUS” digital voting system). Furthermore, the right to be elected to the Board of Directors shall be permitted in only one Chamber of Commerce of the voter’s choice.
Statement by Vasilis Korkidis, President of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI): “We therefore call for the adoption of a modern and coherent framework for chambers of commerce, which will enshrine the autonomy of the chambers, limit state oversight to verifying legality, clearly distinguish their specific public responsibilities from their developmental and economic functions, and allow the Chambers to effectively fulfill their institutional role as bodies representing and promoting the business community.
Our aim is not to undermine transparency or accountability. We are not asking for privileges. We are not asking for exemptions. We are calling for the restoration of institutional equality and consistency. We are asking for practical recognition of what the law already recognizes in principle: that Chambers of Commerce are public-law entities in the form of associations and must be treated under the same institutional terms that the State has already recognized for the country’s other professional self-governing bodies.
That is the purpose of this memorandum. And that is the reform we must demand today.”