L’AQUILA – During the electoral campaign for the regional elections on 10 March, all or almost all of the aspiring councilors indicated that the priority of the legislature, if elected, was to deploy resources and create jobs and services to combat the depopulation of the small towns of Internal Abruzzo. Often in a vague and smoky way. However, the fact that internal Abruzzo already represents a pioneer territory for the number of operating community cooperatives, over 30, business entities made up of the inhabitants themselves and the realities present in the territory, and which already they create dozens of jobs, operating in tourism, in services to the population, in agriculture, and in the valorization and management of heritage.
It’s a shame, however, that the Abruzzo Region, after being among the first in Italy to approve an ad hoc regulation in 2015, regional law 25, which established and regulated community cooperatives, has never put a cent towards financing the specific expenditure chapter, unlike what happened in Tuscany, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and other regions. Yet even just one million euros a year would have been enough, taking into account that there has never been a problem in recent years in finding tens and tens of millions of euros for the maxi nocturnal amendments to the budget, to be distributed randomly and at discretion, without any objective criteria, by all the councilors and councilors, to “friendly” environments, to “loyal” bodies and associations, in the electoral hunting grounds.
Abruzzoweb therefore intended to deepen its knowledge of the world of community cooperatives by asking questions Massimiliano Monettiformer president of Confcooperative Abruzzo, current national manager of Confcooperative Habitat for the development of internal areas, and above all president of Borghi in rete, a network of businesses with its own legal personality, which brings together, coordinates and supports community and non-community cooperatives Alone.
Therefore, going into the matter, Monetti recalls that “during the election campaign, both candidates for president, Marcus Marsilio And Luciano D’Amico in the meeting we held, they promised concrete support, and the hope is now that words will be followed by actions. If you really want to create jobs, services and welfare in the small towns of the hinterland, you cannot help but help now reliable and well-established actors such as community cooperatives. Suffice it to say that thanks to them there are already around seventy people who have a pay slip, which in small towns is a very important number, and to this are added the advantages, also from an economic point of view, for the other members who have their own business , or for those who can carry out part-time and occasional jobs, based on projects”.
And he insists: “if you think about it, it is absurd that Abruzzo is a pilot case in Europe, because its cooperatives are the only ones in Italy to be united in networked villages, while the Region instead shows substantial indifference, after having had the merit of having been one of the first to legislate on the subject, not providing even a single euro of funding to support this process, which, walking with its own strength, proves to give concrete results. In all these years, not even a register of existing cooperatives has been approved, as required by the 2015 law”.
Based on what Abruzzo Openpolis reports, processing data from Gssi, Istat and the Department of Territorial Cohesion, 31 community cooperatives are now formally active, but it is not certain that they are all actually operational. However, 74% are concentrated in mountainous areas, with very low population density, and strong economic and geographical marginality.
In the province of Teramo there are community cooperatives in Sant’Omero, Silvi and Colledara, in the province of L’Aquila in Collebrincioni, a hamlet of L’Aquila, Calascio, Navelli, Castel del Monte, Sante Marie, Massa d’Albe, Aielli, San Vincenzo Valle Roveto, Collelongo, Anversa degli Abruzzi, Fontecchio, Pescasseroli, Scontrone, Pettorano sul Gizio, Cansano, Campo di Giove and Barrea. In the province of Chieti, Orsogna, Lama dei Peligni, Palena, Gessopalena, Monteodorisio, Fresagrandinaria, Tufillo, Torrebruna, Monteodorisio. In the province of Pescara Popoli and Castiglione a Casauria.
And others are being born, under the best auspices, like just a week ago, the community cooperative Il Cuore delle Valli, in Goriano Valli, a hamlet of the municipality of Tione degli Abruzzi, in the province of L’Aquila, which will offer excursions along the routes of vertical transhumance, to discover the medieval towers of the middle Aterno valley, a community shop and more.
“The decisive aspect of community cooperatives – explains Monetti again – is that it is the inhabitants who become entrepreneurs, who have to come together to achieve common objectives, it is an enterprise rooted in the territory, which creates services and welfare for all, and point The strength of Abruzzo’s community cooperatives is, as mentioned, that they are united in networked villages, benefiting from a fundamental control room to support projects that are often not easy to develop alone. For example, Borghi in rete recently obtained 300,000 euros of European funding for the Ruractive and Esira tourism projects, as a pilot case in Italy, and of which community cooperatives will obviously be implementing entities. Other important opportunities will open up with services for the elderly, with local medicine and with energy communities”.
Here are some examples of the activities currently carried out by community cooperatives in Abruzzo.
In Campo di Giove the coop has recovered rare and delicious varieties of beans, such as the fagiolone, the gialletto and the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and also varieties of native potatoes, in collaboration with the Majella National Park, excellent products that are offered in the restaurants members of the same cooperative, employing around ten people.
In Calascio the community cooperative manages the tourist flows attracted by the famous fortress, such as the shuttle bus service, and is now starting to deal with an experimental project that makes digital bracelets available to the elderly to monitor their vital parameters.
In Aielli the community cooperative operates in the tourism sector which has had a boom with the famous murals.
In Santa Marie the community cooperative manages the emporium in the main square, with local products both artisanal and food, and the famous Cammino dei briganti with various services around and along a tourist attraction visited by thousands of enthusiasts last summer.
In Navelli the cooperative manages the entire tourist area created around the saffron supply chain as well as the hostel in the hamlet of Civitaretenga.
In Fresagrandinaria the cooperative manages a restaurant and cleaning services on behalf of the municipality.
Of course, Monetti admits, “there are community cooperatives that are making progress, and others that have not worked for various reasons, partly because the associated people were perhaps not the right ones, or because the business projects launched, as is normal that this happens, they have not given the expected results, either because they have not had adequate support from the municipal administration, or even simply because they have paid for divisions and a lack of cohesion which unfortunately are not rare phenomena in our countries. In any case, it must also be said that cooperatives that have not yet developed their potential will be able to do so in the near future, perhaps the time is simply not yet ripe for them”
Going into the formal aspects, the community cooperative requires an activation procedure typical of cooperative business companies. In general, a Community Cooperative, being mainly made up of inhabitants and businesses, requires an initial group of members who decide to be the implementing body of the cooperative, and an aggregation process capable of involving the inhabitants and businesses already present as much as possible. From here, we proceed with the drafting of a shared statute and its activation at the notary of the cooperative society. To be such, however, they must involve a minimum number of inhabitants of the area. The 2015 law had set the minimum quota of members at even 10% of the inhabitants, therefore 100 members for a municipality of 1,000 inhabitants, an abnormal quota, then regional law 5 of 2023 established a more appropriate bar: up to 5,00 inhabitants minimum 12 members, i.e. 1%, From 5,000 to 15,000 inhabitants at least 0.8%, minimum 25 members, 15,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, minimum 0.5%, i.e. at least 50 members, over 50 thousand inhabitants, the 0.1%, or at least 100 members.
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