(Finance) – The movement cooperative is a candidate to play a central role in the growth of thesocial economy in our country, aiming at the affirmation of a new, more inclusive and sustainable model of economy, in line with the explicit recognition of the cooperative form between the subjects of the social economy contained in the specific ten-year action plan approved in December 2021 by the Commission Europeanand with the resolution of the ILO of June 2022 on the theme of decent work and the social economy, which reaffirms the importance of cooperatives as the most organized segment of the sector in many countries of the world.
The theme is at the heart of the 41st national congress of Legacoop “The company of the future: cooperative, for all”, underway today and tomorrow in Rome, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica. In recent times a new sensibility of the institutions towards’social economy, which has now organically entered the European regulatory framework. This is confirmed, in addition to the Plan already mentioned which aims to develop its growth potential, also its inclusion in the strategy industrial of the Union as one of the sectors that can contribute to achieving the goal of a more sustainable, digital, resilient and competitive economy. in fact, the risk of further deepening inequalities is widely felt, favored by the prevalence of an approach based on the belief that economic development and social well-being were essentially dependent on the free play of market forces.
Reality has repeatedly denied this assumption and has grown in recent times awareness of the urgency to think about the construction of a new development model, more inclusive and sustainable on an economic, social and environmental level. “We – he emphasizes Simon Prawns, who will be elected president of Legacoop tomorrow – we represent cooperatives spread throughout the territory and active in all sectors, which by making the most of the contribution of members have often achieved levels of excellence, for example in the agri-food sector, in services to businesses and people, in commercial distribution. We are therefore convinced that the form of cooperative enterprise can make a strong contribution in this direction, placing itself fully in the field of the social economy, or rather of that set of subjects who share distinctive elements that have always been at the center of our experience: the primacy of the person and of the social purpose with respect to profit, the reinvestment of profits to carry out activities of collective and general interest, democratic and participatory governance”.
After a strong recovery in 2021 which recorded a substantial recovery of pre-Covid levelsIn the 2022 for the cooperatives adhering to Legacoop there is a slowdown in growth linked to the increase in costs and a growing pessimism on the evolution of the Italian economy. There request, however, is holding up: 45% of the cooperatives increased the value of production and almost 80% closed the year with an operating profit. The data was presented at the 41st Legacoop National Congress. According to the estimates on the year’s performance, elaborated by theLegacoop Studies Areain 2022, compared to 2021, 45% of cooperatives increased the value of production (among these, 39% recorded an increase ranging from 10% to over 15%), more accentuated in the sectors of construction industry (56.3%) and manufacturing activities (63.3%), in large companies (82.9%) and, in relation to geographical location, in the Center (47.7%).