The European Political Community Summit is an opportunity for addressing such issues as social economy and social entrepreneurship and how the countries can cooperate in this regard, said Sergiu Gurău, executive director of the public association Eco-Răzeni, a founding member of the Platform for Social Entrepreneurship Development (PDAS).

In a news conference hosted by IPN, Sergiu Gurău said social entrepreneurship is a business model that supports the society’s efforts to overcome the experienced crises. Moldova has a legal framework that regulates social entrepreneurship. This is the law on entrepreneurship and enterprises, which was amended in November 2017 and a separate chapter on social entrepreneurship and social enterprises was introduced into it.

In Moldova, there are two types of social enterprises. The first type is the enterprises that set down a number of social objectives in the constitution document and reinvest at least 90% of their revenues. The second type is the insertion enterprises that meet the first two conditions and whose personnel 30% consist of persons from vulnerable groups.

Sergiu Gurău noted that both the normative framework and the ecosystem in general are not perfect in Moldova, while the action plan for social economy of the European world, which was adopted in December 2021, offers more opportunities for Moldova so that social entrepreneurship can develop in an accelerated way.

The action plan has three objectives. The first objective refers to the creation, during the next few years, of a framework for regulating social economy at EU level and for promoting these good practices outside the EU, introducing tax concessions, regulating socially responsible and green public procurement and state subsidies. Another objective refers to entities dealing with social entrepreneurship, opportunities for developing the capacities of the personnel. The European Commission set the goal of developing a website where to collect relevant data from the field. Increasing the visibility of social economy is another objective of the action plan. The European Commission aims to accumulate more data about the number of social economy entities, the number of employees, the impact they have at county and EU levels, the visibility campaigns they conduct for the general public.

Sergiu Gurău believes the officials who will have meetings with participants in the EPC Summit must address social economy and social entrepreneurship and think how Moldova can benefit from opportunities.

At EU level, there are over 2.8 million social economy entities that create jobs for about 14 million people. In Moldova, there are about 60 such initiatives.