Mapping of social business in Europe

10.4.2015

Question for written answer E-005789-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Maria Arena (S&D) , Jens Nilsson (S&D) , Hugues Bayet (S&D) , Elena Gentile (S&D) , Marie-Christine Vergiat (GUE/NGL) , Georgi Pirinski (S&D) , Jean-Paul Denanot (S&D)

On 25 October 2011, the Commission issued a communication on Social Business with a sub-title specifying its objective: ‘Creating a favourable climate for social enterprises, key stakeholders in the social economy and innovation’.

In 2012, the Commission set up GECES, its own expert group on social business (with representatives of local authorities and social enterprises from throughout the EU), especially to examine the progress of the measures envisaged in that communication. The group has already met on six occasions.

The communication lists eleven key actions planned by the Commission, which include developing a map of social enterprises in Europe, ‘specifying their characteristics, their business model, economic weight, cross-border growth potential, applicable rules and criteria for legal statuses and for specific tax regimes’, etc.

At the latest GECES meeting, the mapping work already carried out was presented and raised questions amongst the members. For example, the reports on Belgium, France and Italy were strongly criticised by stakeholders from those countries.

Are there plans to give the Member States or federations of social enterprises the opportunity to express their opinions and possibly correct this mapping?