Dame Pauline Green Acknowledges Spanish co-operatives’ role in combating crisis; ICA receives prestigious lifetime award.

Valencia, Spain. 10 July 2012; Dame Pauline Green today acknowledged the market leading position of the Spanish co-operative sector and its role as a stabilising and community-supporting influence, at a time when Spain leads the European Union in its numbers of jobless and its people face higher taxes as part of national austerity measures.

The President of the International Co-operative Alliance also congratulated the government of Mariano Rajoy on its move to increase spending on the social economy to promote self-employment and entrepreneurship, including the development of worker co-operatives, to more than 940 million euros.

Dame Pauline was in Valencia to receive the prestigious Pepe Miquel Valencia award for lifetime achievement on behalf of ICA members whose work she said was behind today’s award.
It is the first time that an institution has received this award in its eight year history.

She visited two examples of growing cooperative businesses with strong financial results, Anecoop and Consum in Valencia. Read their stories on Stories.coop: Anecoop and Consum.

Read more in the press release:
English – icavalenciapressrelease10072012-2.doc
Spanish – acivalenciapressrelease10072012-2.doc