• This is what the Secretary of State for Employment, Yolanda Valdeolivas, sent to the president of the Spanish Business Confederation of the Social Economy (CEPES) on Monday.
• The Ministry and CEPES jointly identified the lines of work and priority measures to strengthen the Social Economy companies that will be implemented in the coming months.
Madrid, July 30, 2018
Secretary of State for Employment, Yolanda Valdeolivas, said on Monday the "absolute commitment" of the Government to make more visible and continue to promote the sector of the Social Economy in Spain through the implementation of different lines of work that will take to practice in the coming months.
Valdeolivas made these statements to the media after his meeting with the president of the Spanish Business Confederation of the Social Economy (CEPES), Juan Antonio Pedreño , at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Social Security.
In this meeting, Sancho Íñiguez also participated, representing the Cabinet of Minister Magdalena Valerio, and Paloma Gallego , Chief of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State. On the part of the Social Economy companies, they accompanied President Pedreño, Rafael de Lorenzo , Pedro Muñoz and Malena Riudavets , high representatives of CEPES.
A WIDE AGENDA FOR THE NEXT MONTHS
During the meeting, CEPES proposed a work agenda that the Government will take to finalize in a series of measures and actions that will be implemented in the coming months.
In this regard, the Secretary of State for Employment called the meeting "very fruitful and fruitful" and reiterated the commitment of the Government to "strengthen and give new energy" to the Social Economy.
According to Valdeolivas, the measures worked with CEPES constitute "an extension of the agenda that will involve a lot of work in the coming months, but which will generate progress and results relatively soon".
For his part, the president of CEPES, Juan Antonio Pedreño , thanked the Government for the "great willingness" towards the Social Economy and was pleased that the Ministry of Labor has taken into consideration the work agenda and the proposals put forward today.
In addition, within the framework of this commitment acquired by the Ministry of Labor, CEPES and its Board of Directors requested to hold a meeting with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez , in the coming months, with the objective of continuing to advance in the consolidation of the Social economy.
As a result of this commitment and the "strong tendency" of the Executive to work in favor of the Social Economy, Valdeolivas recalled the recent creation of a specific General Subdirectorate for a sector that represents 12% of GDP and brings together 43,500 companies, which together a total of 2.2 million direct and indirect jobs.
DIALOGUE AND PERMANENT COOPERATION WITH THE GOVERNMENT
In accordance with the maximum importance that the Government grants to the Social Economy, Valdeolivas affirmed that the Ministry of Labor will maintain a communication and constant communication channel with CEPES.
In relation to the next initiatives that will be carried out, the Secretary of StateHe highlighted the promotion of mechanisms for the participation of the Social Economy in the Social Dialogue, as well as the upcoming "renewal and reactivation" of the Council for the Promotion of the Social Economy , which has not met since 2010.
For its part, and among other issues, Pedreño welcomed the will of the Executive to enhance the Spanish Social Economy Strategy and demanded to analyze, together with CEPES, the required budget, in addition to the activities, axes and other priority measures needed to develop it. in an integral way.
In addition, the president of CEPES agreed on the need to urgently renew the Council for the Promotion of the Social Economy, since it is the most important dialogue body that, today, the sector has with the Government, the ministries and the autonomous communities.
"That is not active is causing problems with the homogeneity of policies towards the Social Economy in the territories and the absence of Social Economy companies in other inter-ministerial groups that are created for multiple issues," said Pedreño, while detailing that a of these absences occurs in the Interministerial Group created in the Ministry of Health for the discussion of social clauses in public procurement.
Also, during the meeting, the Government representative reviewed other priority actions indicated by CEPES to address the reform of key regulatory frameworks for the development of the sector, such as Law 27/1999 of Cooperatives and Law 20/1990 on Tax Regime of the Cooperatives, the revision of the Operational Program of Social Inclusion and Social Economy or increase the budgetary allocation for the governmental measures of promotion of this business model, according to its importance and socioeconomic weight.
Other proposals that CEPES put on the table were the need to expedite "as much as possible" the publication of the Order of Aid of 2018 aimed at promoting and disseminating the Social Economy, as well as the demand that measures to promote autonomous work, "are applicable to all types of self-employed, including those in the Social Economy sector that represent a very relevant part of this group".
DECENT JOB
During his speech, Juan Antonio Pedreño also transferred the support of the social economy to the initiative of the Decent Work Director Plan, approved by the Government last Friday in the Council of Ministers, which includes measures that CEPES had also transferred to the Government during the Processing of the Plan.
President Pedreño was "against the non-decent work, whatever its form". "Social Economy companies maintain an absolute predisposition to combat the misuse that is being made of a work form under a legal umbrella," he argued.
In this line, the Secretary of State for Employment also condemned this type of practice and stressed that "CEPES does not represent formulas that, hidden under Social Economy models, are really defrauding the labor model and the Social Economy model".
Therefore, Valdeolivas was entrusted to the realization of greater efforts by the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate to "monitor and enforce regulations", since this type of practices, "which are absolutely outside the legal framework, are staining to the Social Economy ".
EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP
Valdeolivas also stressed that Spain is a benchmark in the field of Social Economy at European level as it shows that CEPES has been working since 2015the European organization of the sector, Social Economy Europe, which is leading the development agenda of the sector in the European Union that will be materialized in a future European Action Plan for the Social Economy .
In this sense, Pedreño said that he will present this Action Plan on October 1 in Bilbao , within the framework of the Global Social Economy Forum , a world-renowned event that will bring together the leading representatives of the Social Economy at an international level.
In addition, the president of CEPES transferred to the secretary of state the commitment of the Social Economy, both in Spain and in Europe, in the achievement of the European Pillar of Social Rights to guarantee equal opportunities and access to the labor market of all people, in addition to contributing to create fairer working conditions and an improvement in social protection and inclusion.
That is why Pedreño transmitted the invitation to the Minister of Labor, Migrations and Social Security, Magdalena Valerio , to the event that Social Economy Europe organizes together with the European Confederation of Trade Unions and other social partners in the European Parliament in Brussels on September 26 of reinforcement of the European Pillar of Social Rights.
