Event report

On September 21st, ENSIE celebrated its 20th anniversary during a high-level event in Brussels and online, on “Supporting more inclusive labour markets ? gid://decidim-dife/Decidim::Hashtag/5479/WISE gid://decidim-dife/Decidim::Hashtag/3631/BuyResponsible”. During the whole morning, fruitful exchanges took place with various speakers during three different sessions. First panel on national and european policies in favour of WISEs The first part was dedicated to national and european policies in favour of integration. The panel started with a video from Mrs Brigitte Klinkert, Delegate Minister to Integration, to the Minister of Labour, Employment and Integration, in which she underlined the principal measures taken by the French Governement in favour of the sector in the last years: Recovery plan for integration, development of inclusion through independent work and finally, the development of responsible public and private procurement which are, for her the “nerve of the war”. All those measures should help France to reach in 2022 almost 300.000 persons in integration instead of the 180.000 today. Her intervention was followed by a panel, moderated by Corine Van de Burgt, ENSIE President. The first intervention was by Ruth Paserman, Director at DG EMPL “Funds: Programmation and implementation”, who presented the current work from the European Commision on the Social Economy Action Plan which should be published in December. She underlined that the Commission proposals will focus on four points: raising awareness in Member States and Local and Regional Authorities on Social Economy; raising awareness of social economy actors to the latest legislations and the available fundings; improving the european legislative framework and propose improvements for the national level and, finally, develop links between the social economy and specific questions (fundings, digital ant gree transition…). Mrs Paserman underlined also the importance of the networks in the implementation of the plan and the need of raising awareness activities. Lina Galvez Munoz, Spanish MEP, spoke just after to present the European Parliament work. After underlining the importance of Social Economy to build a sustainable economy implanted in the territories, as well as the role of WISEs to build a more just and inclusive society; Lina Galvez Munoz areminded the work of the European parliament in favour of a Social Economy Action Plan and underlined that the EP will oversee the European Commission proposals in order to ensure that the action plan is complete. Anna Dumont, Director at the ... spoke afterwards to present Czech policies in the area of integration. Her government committed towards social enterprises in two projects, one linked to ESF and the other on from the Ministry of Work and SOcial Affairs which focused on 4 points : consulting services, international networks, coaching and the integration of the social economy in the economy. Mrs Dumont talked then about socially responsible public procurement. Since 2016, a framework law has been introduced in Czech Republic and since this year, it is mandatory for public authorities to introduce social and/or environmental impact in the calls for tenders. She hopes that this will add values to public procurement. The next steps for the Czech Republic is the preparation of a new WISE law, to develop a funding progam linked to ESF that will bring direct support to enterprises as well as the development of a social entrepreneurship strategy. This roundtable finished by a presentation from Jean Dutoya, Advised in Brigitte Klinkert Cabinet. He started by explaining why such a ministry has been created. In France long-termed unemployment is not going down, even when unemployment drops. It has been decided to intervene specifically for the unemployment for more than 12 months, integration through economic activity is a good solution for this problem, therefore a ministry has been created. This Ministry was linked to the Ministry of Labour and not the Ministry of Solidarity in order to put the accent on enterprises and the economy. Since the creation of the Ministry a new Integration Law has been adopted in December 2020, which update the 1998 law. One of the main principles of this law was to set in place the prinicple of confindence ex ante and the ex-post controle. . The authorisation prior to the hiring is not necessary any mode, in order to speed up the recruitment of a worker in integration. Furthermore, exceptions have benn created for some categories of persons that can be recruited in open-ended contracts. Mr. Dutoya insisted on the collaboration of the networks in the upstream the law and the Integration Pact. He underlines the importance for the Inclusion economy that they are focused on future sectors such as hospitality or green transition. Finally, he announces that a big event to share experiences in the area of inclusion will take place at the beginning of next year, during the French Presidency, with a specific focus on the youth. Award for the best WISE Managers Following this panel, ENSIE, awarded in person the best manager Awards, presented by Victor Meseguer from Social Economy Europe. The three finalists of the prize were Humana Nova from Croatian, Milieuwerk from the Netherlands, and PACE from Ireland. This in presence ceremony followed the virtual one that took place last November. Maggie Clune from PACE is the winner of the Award! You can find her a more complete presentation of the finalists. Collaboration between “traditionnal” enterprises and WISEs The last panel of the day was moderated by Matthieu Grosset, General Directof of Groupe coopératif Demain and ENSIE Board member. It aimed to present collaborations and possible supports between “traditionnal” enterprises and WISEs. . Matthieu Grosset startet to underline that he doesn’t like to create differences between the two types of enterprises. According to him, what is important are the partnerships between enterprises, which are as various as the ways of enterprising. The first presentation was made by Ben de Putter, …. Heineken who presented the collaboration between his enterprise and Milieuwerk and the creation of Social Capital. Heineken goal was to create and encourage links. Indeed, as a big company, with numerous contacts, they can open doors. Since 2018, and despite the COVID-19 crisis, 50 persons have been employed with Social Capital. Their biggest ambition is to grow and to connect more and more enterprises and workers. The second testimony came from France with Arnaud Habert from ViE – VINCI Insertion Emploi. VINCI created ViE in 2011 with the aim to have a more operational activity. Indeed, the construction sector is always looking for numerous workers with low qualification. VINCI has numerous operations with social clauses, often the contracting authority ask to set appart hours for people far from the labour market and the entreprises don’t really know how to use those hours. This represent around 2 million hours of integration, around 4.000 EFP. VIE aims to develop partnership between enterprises and integration strucutres. If its activity was focused at the beginning on VINCI? nowadays, all the enterprises can collaborate. The last presentation was made by Charlie Wigglesworth from Social Enterprise UK. Social Enterprise UK launched in 2012 its « Buy Social » campaign which aimed to encourage procurement from “traditional” enterprises” towards social enterprises, including WISEs. The goal was to connect the two worlds. In 2016, they launched the « Buy Social Corporate Challenge » which aims that enterprise spend £ 1 billion in social economy. Thanks to this campaign, around euros 150 million have been spent to this day. What this campaign showcased is that in the last years, there have been a turning point. He is persuaded that social enterprises can make progress and develop in this area.