(...) Last year ended up with the culmination of an amazing collective work to achieve the Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP), which is now avalaible in 23 EU official languages. However, more than a culmination, the launch of the Social Economy Action Plan marks a new beginning,
full of opportunities for the social economy to scale up, grow,
innovate and continue providing collective solutions to societal,
economic and environmental challenges.
In this year 2022, the implementation of the Social Economy Action Plan begins, and Social
Economy Europe is ready to play an active role alongside with its
members, partners, and with the wider social economy community: all hands are needed to achive the ambitious objectives of SEAP for the period 2021-2030.
What is on now?
A Transition Pathway for the Green & Digital Transitions of the Social Economy and Proximity Ecosystem: the Commission has launched a survey
to share views, ideas and proposals on the transformations that the
social economy needs to implement to succeed and lead fair green and
digital tranistions. The survey is just the begining of a participatory
process, which is also an opportunity to connect and build cooperative
projects. Have your say by February 28! Working
on alliances for the upskilling and reskilling of social economy's
employees and entrepreneurs will be also fundamental.
- Financing the Social Economy to innovate and Scale Up: The Social Economy Action Plan aims to go beyond the estimated 2.5 billion euros invested in the social economy over the 2014-2020 programming period. How to achieve this? The InvestEU programme
is an essential part of the answer: new financial products will be
launched this year aimed at mobilising private financing for innovative
social economy projects. These
new financial instruments should be carefully designed in close
cooperation with social economy stakeholders and financial
intermediaries
as ethical finance, cooperative banks, microfinance, credit unions,
philantropy etc. We must make sure that all social economy enterprises
and oraganisations (from SMEs to large groupings) can benefit from these
financial instruments. The new single EU Social Economy Gateway,
proposed by SEE and that will be launched in 2023 will play a key role.
There other funding/financing opportunities uder the ESF Plus, the
ERDF, the Single Market Programme and the National Recovery and
Resilience Plans funded by the Next Generation EU (Recovery and
Resilience Facility).
Boosting social economy's development all over the EU:
the French Presidency of the Council has convened an informal meeting
of Ministers responsible for social economy to be held on 17 February in
Strasbourg. The proposal of a council recommendation on developing social economy framework conditions
will be among the main items in the agenda of the ministerial meeting.
This year, the Commission will start to organise webinars and workshops
for public officials in relation to various relevant policy fields for
the social econoy (socially responsible public procurement, state aid,
statistics etc.). SEE, and its members, are also particularly interested
in the actions to support the development of social economy representative networks, particularly in Member States where the social economy ecosystems are not developed to their full potential.
- Other key areas of interest in 2022:
The Youth Entrepreneurship Policy Academy, to be launched in 2022 with a focus on female and social economy entrepreneurship.
- The new European Comptence Centre for Social Innovation.
Boosting
at Global level and the ILO's International Labour Conference 2022, to
be held in June in Geneva and that, for the first in its history,
includes the social and solidarity economy as one of the main items in
the agenda.
- And very importantly the European Parliament's own initiative report on the EU Action Plan for the Social Economy,
that will be the first institutional input accompanying the
implementation of the Action Plan. A work lead by Jordi Cañas MEP
(Renew, ES); in cooperation with his EMPL Committee colleagues Helène
Fritzon (S&D, SE), Katrin Langensiepen (Greens/EFA, DE), Margarita
De la Pisa Carrión (ECR, ES) and Konstantinos Arvanitis (GUE/NGL, EL).
An opinion will also be produced by the Regional Development Committee.
In short, many
new opportunities for the development of the social economy that we
should tackle together, offering a democratic, fair and prosperous
project for the Future of Europe. As stated before, we are ready for
this new befginning.
Authors:
Juan Antonio Pedreño, President of SEE
Víctor Meseguer, Director of SEE (...)
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