News

On 4 June the European Network of Social Integration Enterprises (ENSIE) held its annual General Assembly meeting in Barcelona, Spain with 22 members from 18 different countries. Two new members Chantier Ecole (France) and Phoenix Co-operative (Germany) were welcomed. Jacopo Lombardi, Policy Officer in the European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, participated in the meeting to share the Commission’s point of view on disadvantaged groups’ inclusion and social enterprises.

The next day ENSIE and its Spanish members FAEDEI and FEICAT organised the European Seminar “The partnerships of work integration social enterprises”, focusing on WISE (Work Integration Social Enterprises) partnerships with the public and private sector through best practices from all around Europe.

After a first opening session setting the frame of the topic, the second panel concerned public procurement and participants listened to the new possibilities offered to WISE partnerships by the new European directive: Direcive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and Council of 26 February 2014 on the award of public procurement:

• Include in national law the provision on reserved contracts – contracting authorities can choose to restrict some tendering procedures for the purchase of some goods, works or services to sheltered workshops and economic operators whose main aim is work integration of persons with disabilities and disadvantaged persons. This new proposal will guarantee a more effective and more sustainable integration of disadvantaged persons and persons with disabilities.
• When bids are evaluated not only on the basis of price but include different criteria to be weighted, encourage the use of social (and environmental) considerations. For example, a public authority procuring the construction of roads, bridges and bus services may decide that the contractor must employ a certain percentage of workers belonging to ethnic minorities.

The social innovation projects director in the city of Barcelona presented the innovative measures for socially responsible public procurement already present in the Municipal Decree of 15 March 2013 (an interesting video is available here). Then three ENSIE members presented different good practices: a Belgian call for tender with an interesting social consideration for the social economy, an Italian reserved contract but below the EU threshold (the only reservation available for WISE with the old directive) and the Netherlands experience of Amsterdam in supporting WISE through public procurement but not only (presentations available here).

The third panel was about the original partnership between the Catalan work integration social enterprises gathered within FEICAT, the Mayor of Barcelona and the Foundation “la Caixa” and concerned the integration of homeless people in Barcelona.

At the end the participants listened to some interesting examples of cooperation and corporate social responsibility among work integration social enterprises and private profit enterprises: a Spanish good practice in the transport and logistic sector managed by Traldis Porta Expres Sl with the WISE “Trinijove”, a Romanian good practice between the WISE “Ateliere Fara Frontiere” and the big Auchan group, a Danish good practice in the framework of the customers service developed by UNO-X and the WISE “Telehandelshuset”, a French good practice in the hotel and catering sector built by COORACE in partnership with the “Union des Métiers et des Industries de l’Hôtellerie” (UMIH) and several Serbian examples of partnerships based on a small research conducted by SENS, ENSIE’s member, about the cooperation between business sector and WISE, that has established that almost 40% of its members have cooperation with traditional businesses (presentations available here).

Find the summary of this two-day meeting and all the presentations on ENSIE’s website.

Full article.