Cooperatives Europe
Cooperatives Europe is the European regional office of the International Co-operative Alliance. It acts on behalf of cooperative enterprises in Europe, with a mission of promoting the cooperative business model and advocating for a "level playing field between cooperatives and other forms of enterprise".
As of 2026, it consists of 84 member organizations from 33 European countries across all business sectors. It represents 141 million individual member cooperators, who own 176,000 cooperative enterprises and employ 4.7 million European citizens.
Overview
As part of the International Cooperative Alliance, Cooperatives Europe adheres to the definition of a cooperative as outlined in the Statement on the Co-operative Identity, which also defines the seven cooperative principles.On the first Saturday of July each year, Cooperatives Europe celebrates International Co-operative Day. In December 2009, the United Nations declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives.
Cooperatives Europe claims to increase knowledge of the cooperative business model across Europe and to facilitate the development of cooperative enterprises. Cooperatives Europe is registered in the European Union Transparency Register, created by the European Commission.
Cooperatives Europe is developing a European network of Young Cooperators.
History
Cooperatives Europe was established on 7 March 2006 as a nonprofit organization under Belgian law.Since 2012, Cooperatives Europe has been recognized as a Civil Society Organization and takes part in the Policy Forum on Development, organized by the European Commission’s DG DevCo. Cooperatives Europe has organized several seminars on international cooperation, such as the event Cooperatives and Sustainable Development: Challenges for the Post-2015 Agenda, co-organized with CoopBuro in Brussels, among others.
Cooperatives Europe was one of the partners within the European Year for Development.