The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the European Union's development bank and is owned by the EU Member States. It is one of the largest supranational lenders in the world. The EIB finances and invests both through equity and debt solutions projects that achieve the policy aims of the European Union through loans, guarantees and technical assistance.
A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. Cooperatives may include:
The European Cooperative Society is, in corporate law, a European cooperative type of company, established in 2006 and related to the Societas Europaea (SE). They may be established and may operate throughout the European Economic Area. The legal form was created to remove the need for cooperatives to establish a subsidiary in each member state of the European Union in which they operate, and to allow them to move their registered office and headquarters freely from one member state to another, keeping their legal identity and without having to register or wind up any legal persons. No matter where they are established, SCEs are governed by a single EEA-wide set of rules and principles which are supplemented by the laws on co-operatives in each member state, and other areas of law.
European integration is the process of industrial, economic, political, legal, social, and cultural integration of states wholly or partially in Europe or nearby. European integration has primarily come about through the European Union and its policies.
The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives. They were first set out in 1844 by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England, and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operatives around the world continue to operate. The implications of the Rochdale Principles are a focus of study in co-operative economics. The original Rochdale Principles were officially adopted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) in 1937 as the Rochdale Principles of Co-operation. Updated versions of the principles were adopted by the ICA in 1966 as the Co-operative Principles and in 1995 as part of the Statement on the Co-operative Identity.
Dame Pauline Green, is a former Labour and Co-operative Member of the European Parliament and former Leader of the Parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists (PES). As leader of the PES, she had a central role in the controversy surrounding the failure to discharge the European Commission (EC)'s 1996 budget, bringing the first motion of censure against the commission but voting against it. She then changed her position following corruption allegations raised by EC official Paul van Buitenen to call for Jacques Santer to react promptly or be sacked. Green lost the leadership of the PES in 1999, which was attributed in part to her handling of the incident.
A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote.
A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
The social economy is formed by a rich diversity of enterprises and organisations, such as cooperatives, mutuals, associations, foundations, social enterprises and paritarian institutions, sharing common values and features:
The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental cooperative organization founded in 1895 to unite, represent and serve cooperatives worldwide. The ICA is the custodian of the internationally recognised definition, values and principles of a cooperative in the ICA Statement on the Cooperative Identity. The ICA represents 315 co-operative federation and organisations in 107 countries.
A consumers' co-operative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such co-operatives operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit. Many cooperatives, however, do have a degree of profit orientation. Just like other corporations, some cooperatives issue dividends to owners based off a share of total net profit or earnings ; or based off a percentage of the total amount of purchases made by the owner. Regardless of whether they issue a dividend or not, most consumers’ cooperatives will offer owners discounts and preferential access to good and services.
Cooperative economics is a field of economics that incorporates cooperative studies and political economy toward the study and management of cooperatives.
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement began with the application of cooperative principles to business organization.
The European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB) is a European interest group representing cooperative banks in the European Union (EU) and five non-European countries. Established in 1970, the non-profit association "represents, promotes and defends" the common interests of its 26 member institutions and 2.700 cooperative banks regarding banking as well as cooperative legislation.
International Cooperative Day is an annual celebration of the cooperative movement observed on the first Saturday in July since 1923 by the International Cooperative Alliance.
Patrick Develtere is Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Leuven. From 2017 until the beginning of 2020 he was a principal adviser for European Social Policy at the European Political Strategy Centre (EPSC), the in-house think tank of the European Commission. Before joining the EPSC in 2017 he was the president of beweging.net, the Belgian Christian Workers’ movement.
CIDSE, which is short for "Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité", is an umbrella organization for Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America.
EuropeanIssuers is an association representing the interests of publicly quoted companies on European stock exchanges. Since 2008, its objective has been to ensure that European Union policy creates an environment in which companies can raise capital through the public markets and deliver growth over the longer term.
The Conference of European Directors of Roads (CEDR) or Conférence Européenne des Directeurs des Routes was created in 2003 from the former Western European Road Directors (WERD). It is a non-profit organisation established as a platform for the Directors of National Road Authorities. Having a European focus, CEDR complements the work of the World Road Association PIARC and other regional associations of road authorities. CEDR's activities are carried out in an open and transparent way in accordance with CEDR's own code of conduct and the code of conduct of the EU institutions. CEDR's is listed in the EU Transparency Register, 485630615462–79.
