On Friday the 5th of May 2023, the President of CECOP, Giuseppe Guerini, met the Spanish Director-General of Social Economy, Maravillas Espín, together with the President of CICOPA, Íñigo Albizuri, and the President of COCETA, Luis Miguel Jurado in Madrid, Spain. They discussed the merits of the cooperative model, democracy at the workplace, and the importance of government support.

 

 

In the first place, they acknowledged the Spanish work in promoting Social Economy and cooperatives and stressed that the coming six months would be a unique opportunity to continue this work on at the European level. This is because the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union is set to start the 1 of July 2023. In addition, they reminded the Director-General of the great work that cooperatives are doing in Spain, and all over Europe.

Furthermore, the President of CECOP seized this opportunity to invite the Spanish Government to use their upcoming Presidency to promote worker cooperatives in the EU. He pointed out that the work done in Spain, in terms of visibility should be implemented on EU scale. A good starting point for this would be to push for better representation of cooperatives in the European Social Economy Plan.

The Director-General assured that the Spanish Government is committed to increasing the visibility of cooperatives in speeches, proposals, and policy. One way she wants to put the words into action, is by increased collaboration between government and cooperative organisations.

Before the visit to the Ministry of Social Economy, the President and Vice-President had a meeting with our Spanish member COCETA. At COCETA’s headquarters in Madrid, they sat down with the President of COCETA, Luis Miguel Jurado, the Vice-President of COCETA and CECOP Board Member, Malena Riudavets, CECOP Board Member, Antonio Martinez, and the Director of COCETA, Paloma Arroyo.

 

 

During their meeting, they discussed the important role cooperatives play in tackling the many challenges the EU is facing. They focused on the importance of government action in supporting cooperatives, and creating adequate legal frameworks.

Read more on the website of COCETA here and here.