Few words from Introducion

This paper begins with an overview of the social economy in Europe (15 original EU countries plus 10 new member countries). It examines the reasons for the differences in the level of development of the social economy in different countries; it looks at the welfare state and family roles in specific countries. It goes on to examine the importance of institutions both nationally and locally in the development of the social economy. It explores different forms of institutions: both policy measures and support structures. It looks, in particular, at an example of social enterprise policy where this is highly developed: particularly that of the UK government’s special enterprise policy. And it explores some of the different options for institutional development that would favour social economy development in the countries of the new enlarged Europe, including Poland.

Text: Institutional Frameworks for Social Enterprise: Challenges for Poland and other new Member States

SOCIAL ECONOMY TEXTS is an editorial series that presents important texts in the discussion about social economy in Poland. The series is part of an ESF funded project “Searching for a Polish model of the social economy”.

The following text was written as part of the project “Searching for a Polish model of the social economy”, realized with funding from the EQUAL Initiative of the European Social Fund.