The problem of cooperative boundaries: History, considerations and constraints

For more than 20 years, the French cooperative movement has worked on the definition of its economic boundaries, an essential problem for cooperative enterprises. As a satellite account of the social and solidarity-based economy (SSE) does not exist, it organised itself together with public authorities and the players of the SSE in view of defining “extended” boundaries, which take into account the “cooperative core” and the subsidiaries of cooperatives. The cooperative movement is confronted with diverging views on the definition of this economic boundary by the Observatoire national de l’ESS (National SSE Observatory), which engages in the collection of statistics and measurement as well as the observation of the social and solidarity-based economy. This article retraces the major periods of and the background to the establishment of the cooperative boundaries as defined by Coop FR, the organisation representing the French cooperative movement. It also proposes ways to progress towards a better visibility of SSE enterprises and cooperatives in particular.