Social Services Europe (SSE) has broadly welcomed the Social Economy Action Plan “Building an economy that works for people: an action plan for the social economy” (SE AP) which the European Commission issued on 9 December 2021. In our statement of 15 December 2021 we provided an initial evaluation of the Action Plan and how it would support social service providers in the social economy. SSE has also sent a letter to the National Ministers responsible for Social Economy prior to their meeting on 17 February 2022 in Paris highlighting six areas that we considers particularly relevant for Member States and offering our cooperation and partnership.
With our Position Paper "SSE Proposals for the Implementation of the Social Economy Action Plan - From Ambition to Implementation", we provide some further analysis on the Action Plan but also wish to identify how the Action Plan can be implemented to its maximum effect and how SSE's membership can be partners in that implementation to ultimately bring a positive impact to the social economy community in Europe. We share our proposals for doing this at different levels of policy and decision making - in Part 2 "What we welcome and why" - and offer ourselves as partners for implementation - in Part 3 "How implementation can happen and our role as partners".
Ultimately, SSE wants to ensure that the Social Economy Action Plan has a real impact across the social economy eco-system and bring positive developments to social service providers and users.