According to the Commission communication of 9 December 2021 entitled Building an economy that works for people: an action plan for the social economy, the social economy encompasses a range of entities with different business and organisational models. They operate in a large variety of economic sectors. The three main principles of the social economy include: (i) the primacy of people as well as social or environmental purpose over profit; (ii) the reinvestment of all or most of the profits and surpluses to further pursue their social or environmental purposes and carry out activities in the interest of their members/users or society at large; and (iii) democratic or participatory governance. In that respect, social economy entities can take the form of cooperatives, mutual societies, associations, including charities, foundations and can include religious and church organisations. Social economy entities also include private law entities that are social enterprises as defined in Regulation (EU) 2021/1057 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
