Guide on promoting cross-border activities for social economy

Social economy entities combine societal goals with an entrepreneurial spirit. They are formed as entities with focus on achieving wider social, environmental or community objectives. Based on these goals and aspirations, the European Commission aims to create a favourable financial, administrative, and legal environment for social economy actors so that they operate on an equal footing with other types of for-profit enterprises. To this end, to pursue access to the Single Market as well as on an international level, social enterprises need appropriate business models that simultaneously serve their mission and vision, support them in their cross-border activities and – where feasible and relevant – help them use technological advancements and digital solutions. The study report, forming the basis of this guide has the objective to identify barriers and challenges related to cross border ambitions of social economy entities. Such barriers might cover different dimensions such as legal, cultural, capacity and business model. However, it should be noted that this study does not provides a comprehensive analysis of specific legal obstacles and features. Secondly the study has the aim to picture existing success stories, potentials and processes related to social economy internationalisation and cross border activities. Third, several types of support services are identified supporting internationalisation of businesses in general as well as social economy specific support.