Across boundaries: European cooperative societies. Study cases

Abstract

The aim to achieve –in 2003– the single market also for the European cooperative societies was one of the major objectives of the EC Regulation concerning the status of the Societas Cooperativa Europeae (SCE). Seven years later there seems to be little practical experiences. This paper is focused in the analysis of experiences in the Basque Country, especially on Ethical Banking and the Project developed known as Fiare, which would be the first European scope credit cooperative. The study of this case has just emerged some questions about the real difficulties for extending this kind of European collaboration: some of them with legal basis but others probably with cultural basis.

Keywords

• Sociedad Cooperativa Europea
• Banca ética
• Cooperativa de crédito
• Single market
• Societas Cooperativa Europeae
• Ethical Banking
• Credit cooperative