Legal research overview:
The legal framework analysis aims to provide general knowledge of the national cooperative legislation and of its main characteristics and contents, with particular regard to those aspects of regulation regarding the identity of cooperatives and its distinction from other types of business organisations, notably the for-profit shareholder corporation.
It aims to evaluate whether the national legislation in place supports or hampers the development of cooperatives, and is therefore “cooperative friendly” or not, and the degree to which it may be considered so, also in comparison to the legislation in force in other countries of the ICA region, or at the supranational level.
In addition, the research aims to provide recommendations for eventual renewal of the legal frameworks in place in order to understand what changes in the current legislation would be necessary to improve its degree of “cooperative friendliness”, which is to say, to make the legislation more favourable to cooperatives, also in consideration of their specific identity. A snapshot of the results for Poland are displayed below. To download the full report, click on the links above.
General overview:
In Poland, the cooperative is a separate legal entity from commercial companies and associations and is regulated by the Cooperative Law Act of 16 August 1982. The Cooperative Law applies to all types of cooperatives, with special provisions for the regulation of cooperatives that operate in certain sectors, such as agricultural production.
In addition to this Cooperative Law, there are also separate laws for specialised types of cooperatives. Examples include housing cooperatives, cooperative banks, savings and credit unions, social cooperatives and energy cooperatives. Notwithstanding numerous minor changes to the legal framework, the last significant amendment to the Cooperative Law took place in July 1994. Since then, although four attempts have been made to enact a new cooperative law, no major reform of the Act has taken place.
Polish cooperative law does not refer to the ICA principles. However, the principles are applied in practice to a large extent through Polish law in a way that is consistent with their content and purposes. In this sense, the cooperative laws can therefore be said to implement the ICA principles.
Cooperative friendliness
The general law on cooperative law was adopted in a different period to the current political and economic context. In the view of the national expert, there are many areas in which cooperative law has not yet adapted to the current challenges that cooperatives are facing. To remedy this, the Polish cooperative law requires modernisation, as well as the creation of a coherent legal and tax system that is relevant to the current economic and social reality of cooperatives.
Key recommendations for improvement
Several areas for reform are highlighted by the national expert. The future structure of new cooperative legislation requires careful consideration, in order to coherently address the many special laws that regulate cooperatives. For instance, in the area of tax regulation, it is necessary to distinguish between surpluses arising from transactions with members and profits from transactions with third parties. Cooperative audit also requires reform that in order to make it more effective. In addition, the expert highlights that promotion of cooperatives is not yet a public function.
Conclusions
Cooperatives in Poland have a stable, comprehensively defined legal framework for their activities in accordance with ICA principles, as well best practices which are explored in the full report. However, in selected areas, such as the precise definition of the cooperative's purpose or the facilitation of cooperative capital, the modernisation and reform of the legal framework is urgently required.
The legal frameworks analysis is a tool developed under the ICA-EU Partnership #coops4dev. It is an overview of the national legal frameworks at the time of writing. The views expressed within are not necessarily those of the ICA, nor does a reference to any specific content constitute an explicit endorsement or recommendation by the ICA.
Summary:
ICA members represent nearly 9000 cooperatives in the country, with a total number of memberships of 8 048 347, and an estimated 200,000 employees.
User cooperatives, producer cooperatives and worker cooperatives are all present in Poland.
Member organisations are active in the several sectors, including real estate activities, agriculture food and industry, human health and social work and wholesale and retail trade. Sectoral information is provided by NCC. For a complete overview, see the full report. The graphics above provide more information.
