The European Union provides financing for a CCU project

26 January 2010

At the end of 2009 the Central Cooperative Union signed an agreement with the European Commission for the financing of a project titled„Developing an information system of the Central Cooperative Union as basis for the establishment of satellite accounts for cooperatives in Bulgaria”.

About the project

One of the main tasks before the European cooperative organisations is to achieve better visibility, recognition and protection of cooperatives in Europe. To fulfil this task the European Commission issued call for proposals to the national cooperative systems and the national statistic institutions to establish satellite accounts for cooperatives. Thus the Commission would like to encourage the European Union member states to collect reliable, comparable and systematic information about cooperatives, which would allow distinction and appreciation of their role in the national economies.

The satellite accounts are means to provide information in addition to typical statistic information. Using them cooperative organisations would be appreciated in respect of their contribution to the gross domestic product, jobs, capital investments, tax revenue and their role in the payment balance of the country as a whole. They facilitate the development of policies and strategies for the development of the cooperative economy, both at national and at European level.

The Commission approved 5 out of the 10 projects submitted for evaluation. CCU's project is one of them. Following all stages of evaluation and negotiation, at the end of 2009 the Central Cooperative Union and the Commission signed an agreement for the financing of this initiative. According to the agreement the total value of the project is EUR 66 625.71,with95% of the eligible costs (EUR
59 849) being financed by the European Commission and 5% (EUR 3 198) – by the Central Cooperative Union. The project is implemented with the consulting support of the National Statistics Institute and with the involvement of experts from the National Union of Labour – Productive Cooperatives in Bulgaria.

Objective of the project

This is a pilot project aimed at establishing satellite accounts for cooperatives in Bulgaria. Its main objective is to create a centralised statistical database of the Central Cooperative Union on employment, membership, the level of cooperation on the basis of the cooperative principle and the participation of members in the managing bodies of cooperatives and local authorities to be used as an empirical basis that allows the possibilities to establish satellite accounts to be assessed.

This objective will be achieved by attaining several sub-objectives:

•    studying the scope and comparability between the statistical accounting used by the Central Cooperative Union and the National Union of Worker and Producer Cooperatives with respect to employment, membership, level of cooperation on the basis of the cooperative principle and the involvement of members in the work of the managing bodies of cooperatives and local authorities;

•   studying the possibilities to adapt and improve existing methods for collecting, processing and conducting analyses of the indicators monitored by cooperatives for the purpose of creating satellite accounts for the organisations concerned;

•     developing a system of indicators and basic spreadsheets for the purpose of collecting information about monitored indicators which allow an assessment of the possibilities to establish satellite accounts for cooperatives to be conducted;

•   drafting proposals for methodologies to be used for the purpose of identifying the members of cooperatives and cooperative organisations as self-contained groups within national accounting;

•     developing an automated information system of the Central Cooperative Union that allows accurate, up-to-date and sustainable information on monitored indicators to be obtained as a basis for the introduction of similar systems within other national cooperative unions;

•    conducting a final assessment of the possibilities to generate spreadsheets to be used for the purpose of establishing satellite accounts for cooperatives in Bulgaria on the basis of the information collected by the automated information system of the Central Cooperative Union.

The development of a reliable methodology for identification of cooperatives as independent statistical units will raise their visibility as important factors for the social and economic development of the country and the possibilities available to them to drive a balanced and sustainable regional development and actively participate in the process of creating added value and new jobs in a number of economic sectors.

The establishment of satellite accounts for cooperatives and cooperative unions in Bulgaria will allow adequate proposals to be developed in the future with the aim of streamlining the specific legal framework applicable to the development and strengthening of these structures.

The project will be implemented by the Central Cooperative Union (as a lead organisation) in cooperation with the National Statistical Institute of the Republic of Bulgaria and the National Union of Worker and Producer Cooperatives. The participation of these organisations will ensure that the specific features of individual cooperatives and the recommendations set out in the Guide on establishing satellite accounts for cooperatives are taken into account in the course of developing the methodology for the central database and measuring statistical flows. The statistical accounting developed in the manner described above will supplement national statistics with respect to the indicators on employment, membership and level of association on the basis of the cooperative principle. This will allow individual satellite accounts to be established and maintained in the future.

Duration of the project

The project will continue for 11 months and 20 days –10 January 2010 until 31 December 2010.

Project implementation stages

The study of the possibilities for the establishment of satellite accounts for cooperatives with respect to employment, membership, the level of association on the basis of the cooperative principle and the involvement in the work of the managing bodies of cooperatives and to create a statistical information system for collecting, processing and conducting analyses of monitored indicators will comprise several main stages and implementation activities:

Stage I: Study and development of a system of indicators and spreadsheets for the monitoringof employment, membership, level of association on the basis of the cooperative principle and involvement in the work of the managing bodies of cooperatives (Activities 1 and 2);

Stage II:Developing a technical specification and specialist software (Activities 3 to 7);

Stage III:   Launch of the information system (Activity 8);

Stage IV: Discussion of the results of the implemented project and the possibilities to use themfor the purpose of establishing satellite accounts for cooperatives (Activities 9 and 10).