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Enhancing the Role of Social Economy in Attaining the Lisbon Agenda Objectives

In the past thirty years the social economy has been a phenomenon of increasing importance since its values and non-profit driven activities tend to correct numerous imbalances created by the open market. A part of the indirect social economy also creates direct economic benefits as its actors contribute to over 4% of the EU’s GDP. Although the EU has gradually been working on building up the profile of the social economy since 1989, this was not given greater importance within the Lisbon Strategy, the core EU strategic development programme of the past decade. Consequently today the EU is faced with the pressing need to implement measures that would enable coordinated development of this concept in all of its member states. Such measures include the creation of European statutes for associations, mutual societies and foundations, the creation of national statistical registers for social economy enterprises and enabling credit and tax relief for these actors, among others. The forthcoming Europe 2020 strategy may find itself in a better position to promote these actions because compared with its predecessor it puts much greater emphasis on the social dimension. At the level of the member states, diverging national traditions and insufficient supranational coordination have resulted in very heterogeneous understandings of the social economy as a concept. While the UK puts more focus on the market aspects of the social economy, the continental tradition views it more as an extended arm of social policy. The development of social economy actors is of particular importance in the new member states and the EU candidate countries due to the structural weaknesses of these states, the still fragile state of their democracies, underdeveloped civil society and the often unfavourable social situation of their citizens.

social economy, European union, civil society, social cooperatives, Lisbon Strategy, Europe 2020, Croatia

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