Péter Krisztián Zachar, associate professor at Ludovika – University of Public Service in Budapest, and Piotr Marciniak, assistant professor at the Institute of Law Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, members of Chambers of Commerce International Research Group (CCIRG), argue that the traditional debate on the associational nature of chambers of commerce and the eventual scope of their public-law tasks has reached a dead end.
How should we understand chambers of commerce in contemporary economic governance?
The incoming in 3 weeks presentation by professors Péter Krisztián Zachar and Piotr Marciniak at the Chambers of Commerce – 5th International Conference proposes a paradigm shift: chambers should be understood not as one of many forms of business associations, but as institutional platforms for self-government and the delivery of stable, expert and accountable public services.
The necessity of this discussion stems from an honest, albeit uncomfortable, observation. In most countries, chambers of commerce of any model are weak and getting weaker. The reasons vary, but the conventional discussion about how to preserve or improve existing arrangements has produced little, if any, positive change.
Rather than asking how existing chamber systems can be maintained or why entrepreneurs are reluctant to join them, the authors begin with a more fundamental question: why do we need chambers of commerce and decentralisation in economic governance at all?
Creating a constructive answer to this question becomes a concrete offer to entrepreneurs, states and other stakeholders. This question leads directly to institutional design: the chambers’ systemic role, functions and operating principles should be reconsidered in light of the experience of local governments and public-law professional chambers.
The authors analyse four model groups of chambers of commerce. The private-law model is too weak to sustain long-term public functions. The continental public-law model offers strong guarantees but faces its own limitations, including bureaucracy, a relatively narrow range of public functions compared with local governments, and questions concerning the scope of its role and its acceptance among businesses.
The Hungarian and Spanish mixed models, which combine elements of different institutional approaches, raise a sharper question: can a carefully designed package of public-law tasks rebuild the potential of chambers, restore business confidence and create a more sustainable relationship with the state? Finally, the sectoral model introduces an underexplored alternative that deserves systematic attention.
The broader research question is this: why should chambers of commerce perform public functions in economic governance, and under what legal and institutional conditions can they deliver stable, effective and accountable services across changes in political power? The aim of the research is not to propose a universal model, but to develop a conditional framework for institutional design.
This framework seeks to identify when particular combinations of legal status, funding arrangements, supervisory powers and accountability mechanisms, as well as the structure of enterprises and political and social conditions, are most likely to support durable chamber institutions.
In this sense, rethinking chambers of commerce allows us to move beyond conventional debates about how chambers should be organised and towards a more fundamental question: what kind of chamber system, if any, can deliver lasting public value in contemporary economic governance?
This article was originally published on 27/10/2026 at ESCI-UPF.News as one of the articles preceding the Chambers of Commerce – 5th International Conference, which will take place on 19-20 November 2026 @ ESCI-UPF Barcelona.
