Amérique latine

The empresa recuperada, or the worker-recuperated enterprise are formerly investor-owned businesses in trouble or that closed and that are subsequently taken over or bought out by employees and converted to worker coops. Given the re-emergence of these worker-led takeovers, buy-outs, and conversions in recent years in regions and countries particularly hard-hit by macro-economic crises and market failure (such as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Italy, France, and Spain, to name only a few), and given how communities gain from the presence of worker cooperatives, it behooves researchers, cooperative federations, unions, and policy makers at all levels to better understand the recuperadas phenomenon.

The Flemish Interuniversity Council (Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad/VLIR) host an International Seminar "Microfinance and New Left in Latin America" the 12-13 November. The conference will be in Spanish and English. It is open to all academic microfinance experts and political scientist, coming from Latin America, Mesoamerica, Europe (Belgium, France, Netherlands, …); stakeholders from the microfinance sector and policy circles (MFIs, MFI-associations, regulators, public bankers, consultants, politicians or activists) coming from Latin America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, … ) and Mesoamerica (Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, …), and academics and microfinance stakeholders (funding agencies, consultants, NGOs, …).

Le 22 février, le Comité économique et social européen a adopté un Avis sur l’économie sociale en Amérique latine, par 141 voix pour, 3 contre et 4 abstentions. Le projet a été présenté par l’Espagnol Miguel Angel Cabra de Luna, assisté par le vice-président du CIRIEC-Espagne, José Maria Pérez de Uralde. L’objet de l’avis est une approche de l’économie sociale latino-américaine en tant que secteur organisé de la société civile qui a été, jusqu’à présent, généralement exclu des activités de coopération de l’Union Européenne.