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Abstract

Tailor-made legislation for social enterprises in Greece (Law 4019/2011 on Social Economy and Social Entrepreneurship, hereinafter 'the Social Entrepreneurship Law'), introduces a new legal form for social enterprises, i.e. the legal form of the social cooperative enterprise (hereinafter 'Koinsep'). The Social Entrepreneurship Law also introduces incentives for the development of Koinsep and a policy framework to enhance employment at local level through social entrepreneurial activities. Among other incentives, a legal provision of the Social Entrepreneurship Law stipulates that municipal authorities and public law entities can directly award programmatic agreements to Koinsep for the provision of services which improve the quality of public services and assist the public sector in implementing delayed projects. In 2014, the Greek Court of Audit prevented the signing of a series of programmatic agreements with Koinsep, arguing that Koinsep are enterprises engaged in economic activities which cannot conclude direct programmatic agreements with municipal authorities and public law entities without breaching the EU and national public procurement law on the award of public contracts. The Court's decision affected a significant number of programmatic agreements awarded to Koinsep in Greece that were ultimately terminated. In this article, we have developed a case study which examines the award of a programmatic agreement to a social enterprise with the legal form of Koinsep, namely 'Koinsep Merimna Ygeias', that was ultimately terminated on the grounds of the consistent decisions of the Greek Court of Audit. The case study aims to show how Koinsep Merimna Ygeias implements in practice tailor-made legal provisions regarding programmatic agreements and how the practical implementation of the legal provisions affects the function and the participatory governance of the organisation and finally how the legal requirements regarding participatory governance are realised in the organisational set-up and the outcome of decisions . The case study also examines in detail how different types of stakeholders and employees are allowed to participate in Koinsep's decision-making processes. Finally, this article provides a critical view with respect to Greek public policies and legislation relating to social enterprises and their participation in the award of public contracts.

Keywords: Governance, Greece, Legislation, Social enterprises, Stakeholders

Track: Governance

Word count: 14.343

1. Introduction

With a view to building a framework of sustainable and responsible development, European institutions as...

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