Municipalities and Social Economy. Lessons from Portugal

Paper presented at the 5th CIRIEC International Research Conference on Social Economy « The Social Economy in a Globalized World », ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal), July 15-18, 2015.

Job creation by cooperatives and other social economy organizations requires an open spirit towards new forms of co-operatives, the doctrine call hybrids. In Portugal, public interest cooperatives is since 1984 a hybrid form made possible by the constitutional statement that a cooperative sector joins the public and private ownership of the means of production sectors.

The public interest cooperative model needs to be adapted following the publication of the Social Economy Framework Law of May 8, 2013.

The participation of municipal authorities in the building process of cooperative and other social economy organizations is fundamental to the sustainable development of the territories and populations fixation.

I propose that social economy houses, real poles of job and income creation, could be developed under municipal supervision, therefore contributing to a real implementation of a tightly woven cooperative and social sector.

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