Bringing co-operative entrepreneurship to young generations: a challenge for the future
Democratic control and participation, shared ownership, long-term development perspectives are only few of the principles that youth and cooperatives share. To go deeper into this question and debate about how co-operative enterprises can support young people, Cooperatives Europe and the European Youth Forum organised the event ‘Money grows on trees’ on 3 December in Brussels.
Discussions were moderated by Lloyd Russel-Moyle, Vice-President of the European Youth Forum. Enthusiastic about how co-operatives can help young people make their business idea a reality, he underlined the positive collaboration between co-operative and youth organisations.
Participating at the event, MEP Anneliese Dodds (S&D) said: “The co-operative model can empower young people as employees and as consumers. I would like to see a more explicit recognition of co-operatives in the European Union. We need to make sure that competition rules within the EU do not discriminate against co-operatives”. She also insisted on the need for people “to have the information about the co-operative model available to them” and called upon a better integration of co-operatives into European programmes.
MEP Claude Turmes (Greens/EFA), took part in the debate as well; he said: “Unprecedented demographic pressure, new technologies crashing the established system are only two of the factors pushing us to find new solutions urgently. These are challenges, but also opportunities to re-design our society. And in particular for young people, who can invest their resources in something that makes sense to them, in something that they own and control. And this is an opportunity for co-operatives as well, which can contribute to the democratisation of our society.”
Two young co-operative entrepreneurs presented their experience. Sébastien Chaillou outlined the activities of Solidarité Etudiante, the first student co-operative created in France, which provides services to students in universities and campus. Paolo Campagnano presented Impact Hub Rovereto, a co-operative managing coworking space in Rovereto and in Trento (Italy) and providing business support services to its customers.
Klaus Niederländer, Director of Cooperatives Europe, said: “We are proud of this initiative: we are convinced that having young people and co-operatives coming closer together will be beneficial for the whole European economy. We welcome the attention that members of the EU Parliament are providing to this issue and we are committed to continue this work. We now expect that European Institutions will support our work to let our business model be known to young people, and give us the tools to support youth cooperative entrepreneurship”.
EU Parliament establishes Social Economy Intergroup
On 11th December the Conference of the Presidents of the European Parliament approved the re-establishment of the Social Economy Intergroup. This decision follows the support shown by more than 80 MEPs from 6 different political groups.
Intergroups are ways to share views on cross-cutting issues between MEPs from different political groups and civil society. In particular, the Social Economy Intergroup can ensure a regular dialogue between the enterprises of the social economy and the European Parliament. Additionally, it is an essential tool to make sure that the European Parliament and the European Commission take social economy into account when developing their policies.
Klaus Niederländer, director of Cooperatives Europe, commented: “We are satisfied with the re-establishment of the intergroup. Cooperatives Europe and its members have been actively promoting the renewal of the intergroup and we are happy to see that our demands have been taken into account.”
Small Business Act for Europe: Co-operatives contribute to a stronger EU SME policy
The Small Business Act for Europe was adopted in 2008 and updated in 2011. It reflects the European Commission’s political will to recognize the central role of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the EU Economy. In order to enhance a strong European policy to support SMEs and entrepreneurs in 2015-2020, the European Commission has organised a public consultation on how the Small Business Act for Europe should be revised.
Cooperatives Europe welcomes the European Commission’s initiative to present a Small Business Act for Europe for the period 2015-2020. Since the launch of the SBA in 2008, Cooperatives Europe has been supporting the adoption and implementation of a strong European policy for SMEs. The members of Cooperatives Europe are largely SMEs, who could benefit from stronger EU SME policies.
Cooperatives Europe is particularly pleased to see that the consultation explicitly refers to co-operative enterprises for the first time. It is a further recognition of the diversity of ways of doing business in Europe, which deserves equal attention of policy makers at European level.
Klaus Niederländer, Director at Cooperatives Europe, commented: “The European co-operative movement includes thousands of SMEs. Through the SME envoy network and the SBA follow-up group, we are therefore committed to providing our contribution to an effective European SME strategy, one that strengthens the diversity and resiliance of businesses in Europe.”
Cooperatives Europe to set up a European network of young co-operators in 2015
Responding to the need of more and more young co-operators in Europe to develop contacts with peers in other countries, Cooperatives Europe’s Board of Directors approved the creation of a European network of young co-operators at its last meeting on 27 November 2014.
“We are enthusiastic about this project” commented Klaus Niederländer, Director of Cooperatives Europe. “Young co-operators ensure the future of our co-operative enterprises and movement. With this network we want our young co-operators to become a driving force for innovation and change in our movement in Europe: on the one hand we want to bring their demands to the EU, on the other hand this network is intended for the exchange of ideas, projects and, why not, business relations & opportunities.”
Photo: Cooperatives Europe and the European Youth Forum at the event ‘Money grows on trees’ on 3 December in Brussels (c) Cooperatives Europe
