The agreements of intercooperation as a legal mechanism for the integration of cooperatives

Abstract

The dimension of companies is one of the main strategies when addressing many of the challenges facing the cooperative sector. The atomization and reduced business dimension that, particularly, cooperatives in Spain present, becomes a limit of their competitive capacity. Achieving a sufficient dimension is not only a trend or necessity of the business plans but, moreover, it is presented as a public policy fostered and supported economically. At present, the study is interested in the strategies linked to the business growth of cooperatives and, therefore, to the phenomena of integration, collaboration or cooperation.

Cooperative legislation enunciates different normative instruments that can facilitate these phenomena. We focus on intercooperation agreements, as legal mechanisms of cooperative integration that, although sparingly and unevenly foreseen in our legislation, may constitute an opportunity that, in some way, responds to the needs demanded by the cooperative sector. We explain the situation in Spanish legislation and, especially, the regulation of inter-cooperative agreements. We verify their deficiencies and propose the necessary reforms. We seek that inter-cooperative agreements can become an attractive mechanism for the cooperative sector and inter-cooperation, which favors cooperative integration, always within the framework of respect for the values and principles of cooperativism.