28.04.2017
On 27th and 28th of April, Cooperatives Europe held its annual General Assembly in Malta, hosted by Koperattivi Malta, bringing together cooperators from 20 European countries.
The event gathered high-profile speakers such as Joseph Muscat, Prime Minister of Malta as well as Christian Cardona, Minister of Economy, Investment and Small Business, who we thank for supporting and promoting the cooperative movement and social economy in Malta and abroad. In his final speech, Dirk J. Lehnhoff, now former President of Cooperatives Europe, looked back at the last 4 years and stated that the work achieved had exceeded all of his expectations.
The General Assembly also received a letter from Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska (available below), in which she cited cooperatives as important actors in EU entrepreneurial landscape, contributing to economic growth while creating shared values in an inclusive manner. A video address by President of the International Co-operative Alliance can be seen here. The opening session concluded with a video outlining the size of the cooperative movement in Malta as well as an award ceremony by Koperattivi Malta.
In light of the difficult economic and social challenges faced by Europe, the members had a chance to discuss and debate the role of Cooperatives Europe and its ability to promote the business model and empower the members in their respective countries. Using the audience interaction app Slido, the members voted to discuss and exchange on communication & visibility, entrepreneurship, social economy as well as governance. An infographic with the main statistics from this exchange is available here.
The 2017 General Assembly also marked the election of new governance bodies – a President and the Board of Directors. Jean-Louis Bancel (Coop FR, France) was elected unanimously as the new President of Cooperatives Europe, heading the new gender-balanced Board of 13 national members and 4 sectorial members for the next four years. Read the full PR here.
On the second day the participants had the opportunity to participate to workshops with cooperative experts on topics such as international development, collaborative economy, youth & education, as well as cooperative governance. A new video, titled “The collaborative economy, what is it?” was presented during the closing session. Read more and watch the video.
We would like thank all members, speakers, participants and delegations for excellent exchanges and for setting a cooperative and positive tone to the governance of Cooperatives Europe for the following 4 years.
Click on links below to access multimedia:
Photo GalleryVideo of Dirk J. Lehnhoff’s address and Prime Minister Muscat’s speechVideo of Monique Leroux’ addressLive video with memberson collaborative economy, youth, education and development Summary of the international development workshopLive video of International Development workshopVideos of collaborative economy workshop: 1, 2, 3Behind the scenes video
25.05.2022
The location of the 2022 General Assembly took place in Brussels, Belgium hosted by Copa-Cogeca on Wednesday 25 of May.
AGENDA: Morning – Board meeting Afternoon – GA with strategy talks, statutory business and by-elections – 14:00 (CEST)
In this GA we moved back to the more familiar...
05.05.2022
A participatory workshop with testimonials and discussions hosted by ConcertES, UNIPSO, Cooperatives Europe, Social Good Accelerator at the conference on the social economy and the future of Europe.
This conference, organised French Presidency of the Council of the EU, took place in Strasbourg. It was an opportunity to...
16.03.2022
From 15 to 17 March, we co-hosted workshop 5 “Building a democratic economy for a just transition” with Social Economy Europe, SOLIDAR, the European Environmental Bureau, and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) at the Civil Society Days on March 2022. The yearly event organized by the EESC was...