Intervention of the Caixabank Shareholders Meeting of 2015
Shareholders of CaixaBank, Barcelona, April 23, 2015
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Chloé Meulewaeter and come to speak on behalf of the Delàs Campaign for an unarmed CaixaBank promoted by the Study Center for Peace Justice and Peace, the NGO Setem, the Debt Observatory in Globalisation (ODG) and Collective RETS (Responses to Transnational Corporations).
I speak on behalf of 14062 shares, assigned to the campaign by shareholders who thus want to show their disagreement with controversial investments made by CaixaBank. We attended a meeting this year because although the rules on the financing of the arms industry were made public by CaixaBank in its 2013 integrated corporate report, the bank still does not give explanations on their investment in arms companies.
Mr. President, with this legislation Caixabank said it would not participate in financing operations or the export of military equipment for military use. However, it seems that these promises have fallen on deaf ears. If not, tell me, how do you explain that CaixaBank investment funds marketed arms companies, such as Invercaixa Management SGIIC, SA or Bankpyme SGIIC, SA, which have invested in Indra. And please do not tell us that Indra is not an arms company, because that would not be speaking truthfully. Indra is one of the top 100 arms companies in the world. This is not according to us but the SIPRI yearbook.If CaixaBank financed Indra, you have been helping to make more weapons in the world, in particular flight simulators for fighter jets, draft systems and a variety of weapons products called electronic defense take place, with direct application to Eurofighter combat aircraft, war frigates F-100 and Tiger military helicopters.
In previous years, shares of the CaixaBank campaign without weapons, we reported that CaixaBank has shareholdings of 13 arms companies that produce weapons and combat systems, electronic equipment and military communications, military and aerospace engineering components and warplanes. Mr. President, what did you intend with these investments, did you achieve capital gains from the sale of these shares or have decision-making capacity in these arms companies? Perhaps he is making CaixaBank into a company that is an integral part of the Spanish military-industrial complex?
It is also known by the ladies and gentlemen of CaixaBank that shareholders were granted loans through La Caixa or Banca Cívica, to some of the most important arms producers of this country .This is the case of Indra, Maxam and Instalaza. Let's remind you why funding these companies is completely unacceptable from an ethical standpoint- Indra received 36 million euros in loans from La Caixa and other financial institution in 2009, and we remind you that the weapons section of Indra produces technologies for aircraft, ships and helicopter gunships.
- Maxam, received a loan of 295 million euros from La Caixa and 16 other banks in 2010. Maxam, through its subsidiaries manufactures EXPAL FAEX and military explosives, mines, cluster bombs and ammunition of all kinds. We remind you that this client had the honor of being the largest producer in Spain of landmines and cluster bombs until it was finally forbidden by law.
- But that's not the most terrible collaboration of La Caixa with Spanish weapons companies. His company, Mr. Fainé, Instalaza was financed with 33 thousand euros in 2007 even when the company produced cluster bombs, whose victims are mostly civilians. The companywas financed by La Caixa and the cluster bombs sold that year were used against civilians in Libya by Qaddafi’s forces in the civil war.
Mr. President, today it remains unclear what the status of these 35.59 million euros in loans to companies manufacturing controversial weapons is . Even though they can no longer produce cluster bombs in Spain, you are aware that they continue to do so in other countries? We demand you to answer us, about the remaining interests of CaixaBank to manufacturers of weapons, some terrible and destructive, like cluster bombs?
Mr. Fainé, where is the"soul of La Caixa" behind warplanes after a missile or beneath a mine?
Mr. Fainé, ladies and gentlemen, shareholders of La Caixa, more and more people know that your company benefits from the business of war, CaixaBank distributed the pain and suffering that generate money through the sale of weapons. Or Caix a could immediately cancel their investments in the weapons industy or no one will believe the social soul of La Caixa.
Thank you very much.