Early co-operative initiatives were strongly rooted in a ‘collective awareness’ that sought to improve the well-being of communities. Co-operatives were not merely economic institutions; they were also social institutions that recreated solidarity and collective self-help. Over the decades, co-operatives have become extremely diversified according to their location and field of operation; in countries where markets are more developed co-operatives have weakened their social commitment. In some cases, legislation has acknowledged cooperatives as entrepreneurial forms that differ from investor-owned enterprises solely due to their ownership rights, rather than by virtue of their social orientation. The weakening of the social role of cooperatives was also due to the establishment of public welfare systems, which prevented co-operatives from expanding in fields of general-interest in several EU countries: the predominant assumption was that services that are of key public interest cannot be delivered in an entrepreneurial way. Co-operatives were thus confined to fulfil key roles in given sectors, including consumption, production, credit, and agriculture.
That said, cooperative development is an ongoing process; the political, economic, and social transformations occurred over the past decades have provided co-operatives with new opportunities to reaffirm their ability to tackle social and economic concerns affecting local communities. The goal of this session is to shed light on cooperative evolution in a number of representative countries, where cooperatives are increasingly taking on new social responsibilities. Based on the analysis of new cooperative types explicitly pursuing general-interest aims in Italy, Germany, Chile, Serbia and Croatia, and Greece, this session aims to identify both the explaining factors of the emergence of new cooperative types and the role played by public policies in supporting their growth. The discussion on the evolution of the cooperative form in various countries is aimed to explaining country variations and developing recommendations on how the growth of these types of cooperatives can be sustained.
• New coop trends: cooperatives pursuing social and general interest aims. An international overview, Giulia Galera, Euricse
• New cooperative models for local development: the experience of Italian community cooperatives, Jacopo Sforzi, Euricse
• The case of energy coops in Germany, Markus Hanisch, Humboldt University Berlin
• New cooperatives in Chile, Michela Giovannini, Euricse
• New coop types in Serbia and Croatia, Davorka Vidovic, University of Zagreb and Dina Rakin, European Movement in Serbia
• Social cooperatives in Greece: trends, opportunities and challenges in a demanding socio-economic context, Yiorgos Alexopoulos, Agricultural University of Athens
