Francina Armengol has received the cooperatives to inform them of the new regulations.

The Government is promoting a new legal text to adapt the regulations to the current situation, given that the previous law dates back to 2003.

The President of the Government of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, has met with the Union of Worker Cooperatives of the Balearic Islands and the Federation of Cooperatives to inform them of the draft bill on cooperatives, approved today by the Consell de Govern.

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The text includes the contributions made by the different agents in the cooperative world, in order to submit it to the Parliament for its forthcoming ratification as law. This new text will replace the previous law, which dates from 2003, in order to adapt the regulations to the new social and economic reality of the Balearic Islands, as well as to update the legislative content.

The aim of this new law is to take on board the legislative experience that has been generated over the last twenty years in the field of cooperative societies. With the implementation of this law, the Government is giving a further boost to the social economy, as an important part of the improvement of the economic model of the Balearic Islands.

After the meeting, the councillor for Economic Model, Tourism and Employment, Iago Negueruela, also present at the meeting, celebrated the fact that “one of the important milestones of this legislature” has been achieved, which has meant making “a practically integral reform” of the law to include “important elements of modernisation and digitalisation, but also of equality”.

Negueruela pointed out that it is a text “agreed and agreed with the sector” and explained that the law, which is to be passed during the next parliamentary session, also incorporates “mechanisms to simplify the fact of being a co-operative” in order to promote “a formula that democratises the business fabric of the Balearic Islands”.

The Consell de l’Economia Social i el Cooperativisme (Social Economy and Co-operative Council) met last July to begin debating the new regulatory text. Now, the Consell de Govern ratifies this work and submits it to the Parliament for subsequent debate and approval. Therefore, in these six months, the Government has worked together with groups such as UCTAIB, UCABAL, REAS and UCOTRAIB to achieve maximum consensus on the new articles.

The main axes of this draft bill are based on promoting and strengthening the cooperative formula, facilitating business operations, adapting them to new technologies, encouraging inter-cooperation, reinforcing financing channels and incorporating the gender perspective into the articles of the law. For example, it introduces gender parity in governance bodies according to the number of members a cooperative has, so that if a cooperative has 25% women members, they must also make up 25% of the governing board.

Likewise, the new regulation recasts in a single text the entire cooperative legal framework, both for cooperative societies in general and for micro-cooperatives in particular, which are subsumed within the new articles.

Another key aspect proposed by the Draft Bill is the introduction of the necessary reforms to achieve a modern, clear and flexible legal regime, which takes into account current and future requirements, and which strengthens the cooperative corporate formula as an effective tool for the creation of stable, quality jobs, rooted in the territory.

UCTAIB was represented at the meeting by its President, Malena Riudavets, and the Federation of Co-operatives of the Balearic Islands was represented by its President, Jerónima Bonafè.