IMPROVING THE EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL ECONOMY AND SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Social economy and social entrepreneurship are important for an inclusive and sustainable, social and economic development in Europe. They provide solutions, not just in terms of emergency measures and by rectifying the social exclusion created by the crisis, but also by acting as a lever for new developments as well as economic and social progress.

Therefore, we the participants to the Strasbourg conference in January 2014, congratulate the European Commission for having started the Social Business Initiative. We ask the new EU institutions to keep social economy and social entrepreneurship on the agenda of the next legislative period 2014-2019. In this context, the following points need further discussion and we expect the new EU institutions to take them into consideration and expand on them in an open dialogue with civil society actors:

1. How to promote the large variety in social economy and of social entrepreneurship in Europe, which is positive and inspiring, and how to best take this variety into consideration when discussing the necessary financial, cultural, legal, etc. framework conditions for their good functioning (e.g. framework conditions which encourage difference-driven innovation coming from the ground, knowing that local knowledge is vital)

2. How to ensure that public authorities bear their responsibility to commission, fund, monitor and evaluate services of general interest when working in partnership with social economy organisations and social entrepreneurs providing these services of general interest; furthermore, how to enable public authorities to support the social economy and social entrepreneurship, especially when being not-for-profit

3. Why and where “new” financing instruments are necessary but also why and where existing financing instruments have proven to be successful for achieving social objectives; moreover, how to favour long-term rather than short-term financing in order to ensure the sustainability of the sector (e.g. in order to support the social economy and social entrepreneurship, “new” financing instruments should add up to existing ways of financing rather than replacing them)

4. The important role of not-for-profit social enterprises for achieving social objectives

5. How to improve cooperation and knowledge-sharing between the large variety of social enterprises as well as within the social economy in Europe in order to achieve social and economic objectives and strengthen the recognition by public authorities at all levels and financial institutions (e.g. existing know-how and networks of social enterprises and social economy should systematically be used on all levels)

6. How to best include social objectives into other EU policies (e.g. trade, economic governance and EMU, …) so as to actually link social and economy in all relevant areas. (e.g. the EU 2020 strategy combining social and economic objectives in one strategy could be a good example if all the objectives remain equally important)

7. How to strengthen the reflection on social economy and social entrepreneurship within and between the European institutions to ensure better policies (e.g. maintain the category “social economy” within the EESC, reinforce the European Parliament’s intergroup on social economy, re-organise the Commission so as to adequately reflect the importance of the topic, for example by creating an “inter-DG unit” capable of horizontally mobilizing the Commission’s expertise)