On 16th & 17th January 2014, social entrepreneurs, decisionmakers academics and representatives from EMN met at the conference “Social entrepreneurs: Have your say!” in Strasbourg to express their views on social entrepreneurship. The event was meant to be the closure of the Social Business Initiative launched two years ago.
The conference was a big opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge about the social entrepreneurship definition and its role in the development of the economy. As a consequence of this exchange of views, two key messages emerged from the event:
1) Economy as a whole has to become more social and responsible and the EU needs to strengthen its social dimension
2) Social entrepreneurship is key to steering the whole economy in this direction and has proved to be more resilient to the crisis than ordinary businesses.
The three key broad criteria laid down by the Commission in its Social Business Initiative (SBI have to be fulfilled by an entity to be considered a social enterprise:
1) having a social objective,
2) primarily reinvesting profits in the activities of the enterprise, and
3) democratic or participatory governance.
It is important to avoid a simplified definition by which any business that is more responsible and more social can be considered as a “social business”.
The Strasbourg conference was concluded with the “Strasbourg Declaration” a final declaration summarising the outcomes of the discussions and representing the views of the various stakeholders. This Declaration is open to be signed. Its main message is that social entrepreneurship has to stay on the EU agenda in the next period. EMN and its members will analyse it and consider if we can support it.