“Social Economy is a vital sector for Europe to ensure sustainable and inclusive development. Local and regional governments are calling to boost this important sector of the economy. All European institutions are working together to reinforce the social economy actors and this Opinion is another step in this direction”. Ricardo Rio, made these remarks when presenting his opinion on 'Creating an enabling environment for the social economy – the local and regional perspective' during a SEDEC Commission meeting.'
The social economy is a part of the economy driven primarily by collective interests as well as social and environmental objectives.
Rio, who serves as Mayor of Braga said that there are important challenges for public authorities, especially at the local and regional level, in the field of social economy making it difficult to develop an effective approach hence dialogue is vital. He pointed out that it is time to boost the visibility of and obtain new data on the social economy, including at regional level.
In his opinion the Rapporteur stressed that most important actors in the social economy intervene at a local and regional level, and that cities and regions are therefore the level of government most interested in promoting this cross-cutting sector. Hence, they should be granted accessible, transparent, comparable, and stable financing schemes regarding the social economy.
With respect to funding, Rio identifies the lack of access to finance as is one of the main obstacles preventing social entrepreneurship from prospering. In this regard he stresses the need to foster synergies among funding instruments and proposes the improvement of the access of local governments to information on European funds and programmes, such as the European structural and investment funds.
He appealed for Local and Regional Authorities to develop socially responsible public procurement processes and standards, paying sufficient attention to economic actors that present a social inclusion perspective and to environmental concerns. Furthermore, he called for the establishment of training and capacity building opportunities for social entities at local level to shift and scale up their business model towards greater resilience, autonomy and attractiveness of careers in the social economy sector.
The rapporteur proposes a mentoring approach through twinning between territories already experienced in developing local ecosystems and related legal frameworks for the social economy and those having no or less experience as well as for the establishment of the official title of European Capital of the Social Economy.