A Q&A on the European Business and Social Initiative

It’s a pivotal moment for European Civil Society. The Social Business Initiative presented last week at the conference on social innovation, Together to create new growth, marked a new era for the sector. The presence of key guests, such as José Manuel Barroso , President of the European Commission and Joaquin Almunia, Vice-President of the European Commission, showed that Social Business is central to EU policy agenda in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Today, November 24^th from 1to 3 pm London Time, on the Guardian Social Enterprise Network, a panel of experts discussed on the new European Social Business Initiative, thanks to an active Q&A with the readers. 

Our blogger, Filippo Addarii, Executive director of Euclid Network was among the keynote speakers, together with John Hacking, Senior European Officer of Network for Europe, Karl Richter, JenLi Foundation, Oil Henmann, NCVO, Clemence Patureau from the French movement of social entrepreneurs, Emmanuel Vallens, European Commissioner and Lousie Pulford, from Young Foundation and Six.

The event was an occasion to discuss about what the European Social Initiative means for the sector, what kind of help and support is required from the European Commission.

“My experience of Social Enterprise “on the ground’ is that it lacks visibility, it has numerous legal obstacles and most of all perhaps it struggles to access funding that other more conventional business models can access. It is these issues that the initiatives that the EU is proposing around social business, entrepreneurship and innovation is addressing” said John Hacking.

Some of the most important measure in the package are:

– a 90 million euro financial instrument for the next financial programming period to provide social investment funds and financial intermediaries with equity, debt and risk-sharing instruments;

– a new investment priority for social enterprises to allow Member States to include targeted measures in their programmes under the Cohesion funds from 2014 onwards and;

– the establishment of a single on-line data and exchange platform at European level to help professionals in this sector in their daily work.

According to Oil Henmann “this will be about real projects…We have a chance to define this new area- get involved with us and share your advice at this formative phase in the EU’s process”.