The contribution of European ethical and alternative banks and financiers to inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development
17 March 2026
by Paolo Venturi, Executive Director of Aiccon Research Center
On March 30, the European Commission published the mid-term review of the Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP), adopted in December 2021 to give the social economy a structural role in the continental agenda. This is the first time the Union has equipped itself with a formal verification mechanism for a plan dedicated to cooperatives, associations, foundations, mutuals, and social enterprises. What emerges is not so much about what has been done, but about the distance between those who have truly understood the direction and those who are still moving on paper.
A Compass That Has Guided, But Not Yet Transformed
The plan envisioned 63 actions across three pillars. The European tracker today records 89 concrete actions, 28 completed and 33 underway. The Commission declares itself on track with the majority of measures but that is an average, and averages hide differences. The most solid result of the SEAP has been producing a shared definition of the social economy. The Council Recommendation of November 2023 pushed 21 out of 27 Member States to launch national strategies, with twelve having reformed sector legislation. Real progress, but concrete effectiveness is concentrated in countries where political will, a mature ecosystem, and functioning financial instruments work together. The others deliver strategies on paper.
The most worrying point is not about individual measures it is about political direction. The ongoing geopolitical shift — defence, competitiveness, industrial autonomy — has marginalised the social economy, which no longer appears in the major cross-cutting agendas: the Competitiveness Compass, the Clean Industrial Deal, artificial intelligence. The elimination of the dedicated unit in DG GROW is not a bureaucratic cut. It is a political signal. COSME funds were suspended in 2025, and fiscal and procurement measures remain unadopted proposals. The social economy is precisely the answer to the crisis of trust in institutions, to territorial polarisation, to the fragility of care systems. Not a niche sector: an alternative paradigm centred on people, internal democracy, and local rootedness. To de-prioritise it today means failing to grasp what is at stake.
Spain: When Intentionality Becomes Concreteness
No country illustrates better than Spain what it means to truly get things done. The European report places it at the top among the 27. In 2023, it adopted the Estrategia de Economía Social 2023–2027 with objectives, indicators, and multilevel governance. The National Statistics Institute integrated the social economy into national accounts for the first time: in 2023, the sector generated €54.4 billion in gross value added, 4% of the total, with 1.28 million employees. During the pandemic, that share reached 6.5% the counter-cyclical function is not a theoretical hypothesis. On March 26, 2026, the Spanish Congress approved the Ley Integral de Impulso de la Economía Social (LIIES): a comprehensive reform, co-constructed with representative organisations, that systematically amends four sector laws. The method matters as much as the content. The overall result: €169.6 billion in turnover, 127,532 enterprises, 2.25 million employees. These are numbers from a structural economy.
Italy: Solid Foundations, Implementation Still Missing
The contrast with Italy is stark. European documents describe it with a precise expression: mid-range or uneven. Coherent on paper, uneven in effectiveness, held back by coordination challenges and bureaucracy. In the period 2021–2025, there were no new national legislative frameworks, no dedicated budget lines, no satellite account. And yet the country is not lacking in social economy. It has the Third Sector Code, the Marcora Law — cited in Brussels as a replicable best practice and the cooperative Mutual Funds. It is the single largest beneficiary of dedicated structural funds in the 2021–2027 cycle: nearly €160 million between ERDF and ESF+, representing 44% of the European total. Added to this is the European Commission’s Comfort Letter (March 2025), which declared the Third Sector’s tax regimes compatible with the Treaty, resolving an interpretive knot that had long weighed on the sector’s legal certainty.
Something is moving from the bottom up, however. Emilia-Romagna has developed a regional strategy integrating co-design, community welfare, and economic development, positioning itself as a laboratory. Turin — cited in the European Gateway — has built an ecosystem through Torino Social Impact connecting social enterprises, investors, and institutions. Bologna has adopted a dedicated metropolitan plan. These territories did not wait for Rome. This is both a signal and a limitation: encouraging because it demonstrates that the culture and capacity exist, problematic because Italy proceeds through disconnected local centres of excellence, without a national framework capable of amplifying them.
2026 is the Decisive Year and the Conditions Are There
The mid-term review does not close things it opens them. For Italy, 2026 will be the year of truth. If the National Plan is adopted with genuine ambition, verifiable financial resources, a functioning inter-ministerial governance structure, and a scope capable of bringing cooperatives and the Third Sector together under a shared and open identity, the country can reclaim the positioning it deserves.
The assets are there. Italy has already demonstrated its ability to build models that become European references: the Third Sector Code, the Marcora Law, social cooperation, and many social innovation experiences. What is missing is the connection between these centres of excellence, the world of business, and public procurement. But connections can be built and this year will reveal whether the moment is right, not because the European calendar demands it, but because the conditions, for the first time in a convergent way, are genuinely in place.
The social economy is not residual welfare: it is a paradigm of democratic competitiveness and territorial cohesion. Those who understand this today are building the advantage of tomorrow. Italy has everything it needs, it is up to us to choose to use it.
