The opinion (Rapporteur Marie Zvolska – from the Czech cooperative federation SCMVD and co-rapporteur Jan Olsson – Coompanion and CECOP vice-President), underlines the relative superior performances of cooperative enterprises when it comes to growth, employment, survival rates and start-ups, as it was developed in the book “Beyond the crisis: Cooperatives, Work, Finance" published by CECOP and mentioned in the report.
Among other things, the report mentions the higher survival rate of worker cooperatives in France and the better employment rate and lower rate of failure for all cooperatives in Italy.
In addition, the EESC acknowledges the contribution of cooperatives to the EU 2020 strategy, as a business model that contributes to social and territorial cohesion.
This opinion has reportedly caught the full attention of Commissioner Michel Barnier (Internal Market) who has mentioned it several times, as well as the Cabinet of Commissioner Tajani (Enterprise and Industry). Enzo Pezzini from the Confcooperative office in Brussels participated very actively to the drafting of this opinion.
In Europe, according to the EESC’s opinion, cooperatives account for 160,000 enterprises owned by 123 million members, providing jobs for 5.4 million people.
The opinion is available here: http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.ccmi-opinions.19704
