Social Services Europe welcomes and generally supports the newly launched EC proposal for a Council Recommendation on developing social economy framework conditions.
However, SSE would welcome to see reflected in the final version of the Council Recommendation, planned for adoption in early October under the Spanish EU Council Presidency, in particular the following six points:
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Funding: Improve the text around access to funding for not-for-profit socials service providers.
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Workforce: A recommendation to the EU MS on how to better address the workforce-related challenges of the not-for-profit social services sector.
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Public procurement: A recommendation for the EU MS to ensure legal and political recognition for alternative instruments to public procurement.
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State aid: A recommendation to the EU MS on State Aid to give more weight to the specificities of the SSGI sector in the ongoing revision of the SGEI de minimis Regulation and any future revisions of the GBER.
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Access to the labour market and related services: Two recommendations
○ Recital 4: The role of not-for-profit social service providers and the fact that the social economy offers employment opportunities in local and regional labour market and jobs which cannot be relocated could be easily added.
○ Article 5 “Access to the labour market” could be reworded. -
Social impact assessment and methodologies: A change in the text on “simple standard social impact methodologies” to include the call for the development of evaluation tools and methods that take into account the specific features of the diversity of social economy entities, their social goals, practices , values and principles.