A push by a group of Parliamentary Deputies from the majority group in the Polish Government to weaken the country’s co-operative framework has been met with decisive action from the Polish co-operative movement supported by Dame Pauline Green, the ICA’s president, and Felice Scalvini, President of Co-operatives Europe. “If we want to maximise co-operative competitive potential and input to the European economy, the EU needs to ensure that its member states urgently ensure that its co-operative legislation is fit for purpose – that it is enabling and not prescriptive, that it encourages growth and doesn’t constrain it,” Dame Pauline told an informal Meeting of EU Ministers on competitiveness in the Polish seaside resort of Sopot.
Co-operative businesses already play a part in driving growth and competitiveness in the European economy but further policy measures by the EU can ensure that co-operatives not only continue to do this but also support the European and the movement’s own values of solidarity, autonomy and democracy.
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