As the Danish Presidency of the Council of the European Union nears its end on 31 December 2025, we sat down with Frederik Petersen, President of CECOP's Danish member Kooperationen, to reflect on the key cooperative issues during this period.

Reader's Note: The Council of the European Union represents the interests of the 27 EU Member States. Alongside the European Parliament, it adopts legislation and helps define the EU's overall political direction. The Council’s priorities are determined by a rotating presidency, held by one Member State for six months.

 

CECOP: Denmark took over the Presidency of the EU Council in July 2025 and will hold it until the end of the year. For Kooperationen, what are the most pressing issues that the Danish Presidency should address during its term?

Frederik Petersen: The main task for Kooperationen is to promote, strengthen and connect democratically owned enterprises that create local jobs, take social responsibility and contribute to a sustainable and fair economy. These enterprises represent the ‘everyday Europe’, and they need policies shaped around their real conditions. From our perspective, the EU’s task should be to create better and more workable framework conditions for these enterprises.

At the same time, we see that Europe’s major political agendas (security, competitiveness and technological transformation) have grown so large that they sometimes drift away from the daily realities of the people and enterprises who ultimately must deliver on them. These priorities are important, but it’s also worth remembering that Europe’s solutions will largely be implemented by the 99% of enterprises that are small and locally rooted, rather than the 1% of actors that typically influence how we imagine successful businesses.

Today, even well-intentioned attempts to simplify regulation to increase competitiveness often create more uncertainty and additional costs for both small and large organisations, as we have seen with the green transition in practice. Europe needs to turn the Single Market into a genuine competitive force, one that recognises and uses the differences across our 27 Member States as a strength, rather than seeing them as barriers that must be levelled out in order to do business.

 

Looking at the Danish Presidency's priorities, which largely focused on current geopolitical tensions, increasing European competitiveness, and the green transition, how do cooperatives fit into these?

In a more uncertain geopolitical situation, cooperatives contribute with something Europe needs more of: local ownership, stability, and trust. According to recent data from Kooperationen’s think tank, democratically owned enterprises account for over 10% of turnover in the Danish economy alone, invest more than average, and have far lower bankruptcy rates. That shows a business model that is both robust and long-term.

It is the everyday enterprises, including cooperatives, that hold communities together and make European priorities real in practice. The Danish Presidency has an opportunity to recognise this and strengthen the framework conditions for these organisations to do even more.

 

Regarding the green transition, what is the cooperative’s role in it and how could they be better supported in it?

Cooperatives are essentially built as ESG-native from the bottom up: the ‘Sustainability’ and ‘Governance’ are part of their DNA, and many are already ahead on the ‘Environment’. Because they are governed by communities rather than external shareholders, both long-established and newly founded cooperatives integrate environmental and social responsibility from the start. This gives them a natural competitive advantage.

In Denmark, we have recently taken concrete steps to get public institutions to recognise this. Through our campaign “The Community’s Money”, more than 200 local and regional election candidates committed to ensuring decent working conditions and responsible practices when municipalities and regions spend public funds.

And in the Municipality of Copenhagen, our local cooperative community Kooperativt København has developed a shared vision and agreement with the Lord Mayor to make Copenhagen the most cooperative capital in the world. This includes encouraging the city’s procurement department to prioritise cooperatives and social economy enterprises as preferred suppliers, ensuring that public money supports organisations that deliver social value, decent work and environmental responsibility.

 

What do you think is missing from the priorities of the Danish Presidency?

What is missing is a clear focus on the social economy and on creating practical framework conditions for the enterprises that actually deliver Europe’s ambitions. The Presidency sets out strong goals on geopolitics, competitiveness and the green transition, but it says too little about the type of economy needed to make those goals a reality - the community-based, democratic and long-term enterprises that already take responsibility for people, places and the environment.

At the same time, very little attention is given to the everyday framework conditions that social enterprises and cooperatives depend on: clearer rules, less regulatory noise, and a more predictable implementation of EU legislation. Without this, the organisations that are willing to lead the green and social transitions risk being held back by uncertainty rather than enabled by policy.

In short, the Presidency could become far more effective by bringing the social economy and democratic enterprise models into the centre of its agenda, and by ensuring that Europe’s ambitions are matched with the practical conditions needed to deliver them.

 

What could the Danish Presidency and indeed, the European Union, do to support cooperatives within the current geopolitical context?

In the current geopolitical situation, Europe needs resilient, community-based economic structures, and this is exactly where cooperatives contribute.
To support them, the Danish Presidency and the EU could focus on three things:

  1. Clearer and more stable framework conditions
    Cooperatives ask for rules that are understandable, predictable and actually possible to implement in everyday operations. Less regulatory noise and better coordination of EU legislation would allow them to focus on delivering social, economic and environmental value.
  2. A stronger political commitment to the social economy
    The EU has already set ambitious goals through the Social Economy Action Plan, but it needs to be matched with national action. Recognising democratic enterprises as central actors, not marginal exceptions, would help Europe link competitiveness with fairness, and growth with social responsibility.
  3. Using cooperatives as part of Europe’s resilience
    In a time of geopolitical uncertainty, Europe benefits from enterprises that keep ownership, investment and decision-making rooted in local communities. Cooperatives create stability and trust, and they reinvest value where it is created. This makes them an asset in strengthening Europe’s economic security from the bottom up.


How would you like CECOP to support your growth in the coming years?

For us, the most important contribution CECOP can make is political.
We need a strong, united European voice that can push for better framework conditions for cooperatives: clearer rules, a more ambitious implementation of the Social Economy Action Plan, and recognition of democratic enterprises as central actors in Europe’s economic and social model. A stronger political mandate for cooperatives in EU legislation would make a real difference for our members.

 

To conclude, what are the main benefits for Danish cooperatives of being part of the CECOP network?

For us, the value of being part of CECOP is quite practical. Many of the challenges we deal with in Denmark (regulation, market access, recognition of the social economy, and how EU directives are implemented) are shaped at the European level. Through CECOP, we can be part of those discussions early on and make sure the Danish cooperative perspective is actually heard.

At the same time, CECOP connects us with cooperatives across Europe. We learn from each other, share concrete solutions, and build partnerships that make our work at home stronger. And finally, it gives us a sense of solidarity. In a time where things feel more uncertain, it matters to be part of a broader European community.

 

Thank you, Frederik!