European Young Co-operators Network launched today in Paris
Cooperatives Europe - the European region of the International Co-operative Alliance, launched yesterday the European Young Co-operators Network. The launch took place during 2015 Cooperatives Europe General Assembly in Paris. A panel discussion was organised to open a dialogue with young co-operators, who held their first meeting the day before. Alfonso Aliberti, Policy Coordinator at the European Youth Forum, moderated the roundtable. "Young co-operators have the motivation and the tools to make the co-operative movement stronger", Aliberti said. Rhiannon Colvin, from the British co-operative AltGen said "The co-operative movement will only transform society if we put young people at the heart of it. The European Young Co-operators Network can help to give a voice to young people within and outside the co-operative movement." Sébastien Chaillout, young co-operator from Solidarité Etudiante, said: "Now that the European Young Co-operators Network is up and running, we will create a space for young co-operators to promote and disseminate our demands." Chiara Bertelli, youth representative of the Alliance of Co-operatives said: "We want to apply co-operative principle six, Co-operation among co-operatives. We want to let co-operatives meet each other and develop together around Europe, and to do this young co-operators, who were born and raised within the European Union, are in the best position to do this. We have the strength and motivation to do that." The initiative was welcomed and strongly supported by Dirk J. Lehnhoff, President of Cooperatives Europe, and Jean-Louis Bancel, President of Coop FR, both taking part in the panel discussion. Also, the President of Cooperatives Europe invited a young representative of the youth network to attend next meeting of Cooperatives Europe board.
Cooperatives Europe brings co-operatives into negotiations for “Financing for Development”
Cooperatives Europe, in collaboration with the other Alliance regional offices, continues contributing to the shaping of the European development policies, bringing the perspective of co-operative enterprises into the discussions. The last meeting of the Policy Forum on Development, a high-level consultative body between Civil Society organisations and the EU Commission, has brought forward considerable input towards the current ‘Financing for Development’ discussions and its upcoming conference in Addis Ababa, as well as the Post 2015 agenda.
Hosted by the EU Commissioner for Development & Cooperation, Mr Neven Mimica, participants discussed how a global partnership could look like, and how to integrate the voice of civil society. This is a particularly important entry point for cooperatives, since the EU Commission officially recognised recently membership based organisations as part of civil society.
Cooperatives Europe, which is recognised as the official co-operative interlocutor by the EU Commission, has been working closely with EU institutions to promote the different actors in development. The latest recognitions of the co-operative model in the EU Council Conclusions have notably been crucial to shape a first reference in the zero-draft preparing the Addis Ababa conference.
With the objective to fuel discussions and make sure that a strong contribution in favour of people-centred businesses is expressed from the European side, Cooperatives Europe is currently following up with the Development Committee of the European Parliament, to get support within the upcoming EP report on the Financing for Development and Post 2015 negotiations.
Cooperatives Europe addresses letter to Juncker to continue supporting SMEs
Together with the other main European business representative organisations, Cooperatives Europe addressed a letter to European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker, to Vice-President Frans Timmermans and EU Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska calling on the Commission to review and stregthen the Small Business Act in 2015.
The SBA was adopted in 2008 and presented a range of actions and measures to be implemented to promote SME growth. Contrarily to expectations though, the 2015 working programme of the European Commission does not include the Review of the SBA. This is more than surprising as a consultation organised on this issue attracted high amount of contributions, which shows the huge interest from stakeholders. Furthermore, during the last SME Envoy meeting to which Cooperatives Europe is part of, representatives from member states supported the review and the strengthening of this tool, which stimulated SME policies at European and national level.
As for co-operative enterprises, they were mentioned in the consultation document. What is more, many of the items touched in the document were the same raised in the report of the Working Group on co-operatives and presented at Cooperatives Europe General Assembly. The SBA has revealed successful on many aspects and it has created an unprecedented dynamism between member states, business organisations and the European Commission: this is the time to build momentum for a stronger SME policy in Europe with co-operatives.
