Cooperatives, a strategic pillar for competitiveness
A strategic asset capable of creating value and ensuring resilience in crises and prospects for lasting growth
Europe is redesigning its budget at a time when global competition is becoming tighter and internal challenges more complex: ecological transition, digital innovation, an ageing population, new geopolitical tensions. In this context, the choice of downsizing funds, for key sectors, risks weakening the continent's capacity to deal with these transformations in a balanced and sustainable manner.
Also affected would be the social economy, which is not a niche sector, but an engine involving 3 million enterprises and 13.8 million workers in Europe, with a decisive role in strategic supply chains, welfare services and territorial cohesion. Of these more than 13 million workers, 4.7 million are employed in European cooperatives. In Italy, the cooperative movement represents 60 thousand enterprises 1.3 million employees, 12 million members and a total turnover of 160 billion euros, or 8% of GDP. Confcooperative, with its 16 thousand member enterprises, alone represents 550 thousand workers and 82 billion revenues: 4% of the national GDP.
The action of cooperatives in Italy crosses decisive sectors: 25% of Italian agri-food products, 80% of national fishing, more than 20% of bank branches with cooperative credit, 30% of retail distribution and welfare services that reach 7 million citizens, from minors to the elderly to the most fragile. Numbers and functions that describe a reality much closer to an economic and social infrastructure than to a niche sector.
The Commission's plan reduces resources for agriculture by more than 80 billion, weakening a sector that has guaranteed food security even in the most difficult times. Fishing drops from 6 to 2 billion. The structural funds lose resources and local intervention capacity, while on the social front substantial reductions are foreseen.
