Poland: first Act on Social Enterprises

On November 25th, the national conference: Movement against helplessness was held in the Polish Parliament. One of the keynote speeches was made by the leading Polish lawyer who prepares a lot of drafts for Acts of Laws concerning the nonprofit sector in Poland. He also drafted the Act on Social Cooperatives. He was also asked to draft the Act on Social Enterprises and during the conference he presented the assumptions for this draft. One of the crucial assumptions was that one has to draw a line between social assistance and social economy. According to the speaker, social economy starts when an enterprise or any other economic endeavor is able to bring a real profit. When it is impossible, one can only talk about social assistance. In consequence, the new Act of Law is not going to encompass the work of currently created social enterprises that are unlikely from the very beginning to bring any profit. This concerns, in particular, the social enterprises that are currently created, under EQUAL Program (theme D) for people with significant (especially mental) disabilities. Such people are slow workers and require a lot of individual assistance. In consequence, the cost of their work is bound to be higher then possible revenues form sales of their services or produced goods. If the new Act on Social Enterprises will not encompass such initiatives, this might result in blocking certain funds that might be in future devoted to the development of social enterprises in Poland. Leaving even aside the ethical and social aspect of such a move, it has to be stressed that limiting the funding for initiatives that are to create work for people with severe disabilities will not pay off, since the allowances for such people when they do not work will always surpass the subsidies for the work places. Above all, however, the presented assumptions for the Act on Social Enterprises are at least surprising in the context of the EQUAL program. As mentioned, the aim of so called theme D of the EQUAL program was to develop in Poland social economy. And one of the most crucial assumptions of social economy was to create the background for social integration through work for most marginalized people in a society. Thus many organizations that help people with severe (also mental) disabilities have been realizing the costly projects aiming at the construction of the social enterprises for such people. And, towards the end of the realization of this program, the Polish government wants to pass legislation that would exclude such initiatives from the possibility of being called social enterprise with all the possible advantages it might encompass. The inconsistency here is quite clear.