At the occasion of this study tour, which included visits to cooperative organisations in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal, CECOP organised a one day interregional seminar on cooperative public policies and development, chaired by CECOP vice president Manuel Mariscal.
In the morning, inter-sectoral issues were debated, with the presence of Cooperatives Europe co-president Etienne Pflimlin and presentations from RECM, Cooperatives Europe, COGECA (agriculture) and EUROCOOP (consumers).
The afternoon part focused on our cooperative sector, with presentations from Brazil, Uruguay, Spain and the UK .
The meeting closed with the signature of a multi-annual agreement between CICOPA president Javier Salaberria and RECM president Paulo Roberto da Silva, ushering in a new era of cooperation between the two entities in the fields of transmission of experience, international development initiatives, strengthening of national organisations of worker cooperatives in MERCOSUR and the links among them, cooperativisation of enterprises in crisis, legislation, public policies, promotion of ILO recommendation 193 on the promotion of cooperatives and of the World Declaration on Worker Cooperatives, etc. (for the whole text of the CICOPA-RECM agreement, please click here)
On 29 October, the delegation was welcomed to Lille by French member organisation CGSCOP vice president Christian Simon and communication director Pierre Liret to be acquainted with several local worker cooperatives (including a high-tech one founded by an Argentinean), the regional union of worker cooperatives, and the SOCODEN financial instrument of the French worker cooperative movement.
