Social economy package

Key points

The EESC:

• welcomes and fully supports the European Commission's proposal for a recommendation to the Member States with regard to supporting national social economy ecosystems. It suggests that the Council approve it without delay so that it can be fully implemented in the Member States;
• recommends that the Commission and the Member States make use of the expertise of national statistics offices and Eurostat to establish an authoritative and regularly updated database on the size and distribution of social economy entities;
• points to the need to include study of the social economy in education and training programmes at all levels, and calls for measures to be taken to develop national competence centres for training in the social economy in the EU Member States;
• proposes that the recommendation to the Member States take into account the provisions of the European industrial strategy relating to the "proximity and social economy ecosystem", and call on the Member States to include the social economy in their industrial policies at national level;
• encourages the Member States and the European Commission to recognise the role of social economy organisations in social dialogue;
• calls for the adoption of socially responsible and innovative solutions in the field of public procurement, with the aim of removing obstacles that make it difficult for social economy enterprises to participate in the public procurement market, and recommends introducing criteria that reward the social impact created, as well as territorial proximity criteria;
• recommends that the Commission and the Member States roll out support measures to enable social economy entities to equip themselves with appropriate tools to measure their social impact;
• recommends that the EU institutions and the Member States foster tax systems that support the social economy by simplifying the administrative requirements involved and by considering introducing appropriate tax measures that recognise its public interest function.

For more information please contact INT secretariat