In its first phase (2000-2002), the project focused mainly on creating partnerships and exchanging good practices between the EU-15 and the organisations from the 10 CEE through east-west regional groupings (e.g. Baltic group, Balkan group), training those organisations in the design of European projects, working on comparative cooperative legislation, and reaching a common positioning in the preparation of the European Commission's first specific policy paper on cooperatives, the Communication on the Promotion of Cooperative Societies in Europe.
The second phase (2003-2005) focused mainly on identifying, analysing and disseminating the parts of the community acquis that are relevant to cooperatives and worker owned enterprises, providing concrete training in cooperative enterprise development (start up, worker buy out etc) under the specific coordination of Diesis, working on the concept of local development under the coordination of Reves Network, and reinforcing the cooperative organisations, especially the weakest ones.
