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Victoria Mindova

Pleasant surprises and the desire of people to look for solutions even in the darkest days never stop filling me with enthusiasm. Sofia Papachristou is a lawyer, scenographer and director. She is not afraid of trying her hand at different genres and has a particular passion for animation. She has produced feature-length and short documentaries and feature films, which never lack a dose of humour.

Papachristou is remarkable not only for her deep creativity, but also for her highly developed sense of social justice. She is the creator of the documentary "Social economy: an alternative" and she is talking about the development opportunities provided by socially responsible business activities with GRReporter exclusively.

In her film, she presents a series of successful small- and medium-sized enterprises across Europe which are based on three core principles - collaboration, solidarity and transparency. The film was funded by the Heinrich Böll Institute in Greece and the European Green Party. Its premiere was at the European Parliament in Brussels after which it was presented in Thessaloniki and Athens.

Tell us more about the film "Social economy: an alternative". How was the idea born and did you find positive examples of sustainable economic growth?

Let us start from the definition of social economy, because it may not be clear to all. Social economy is the middle way between state-controlled economy end extreme capitalism, roughly speaking. In social economy, there is a profit, but it is not an end in itself.

The profit is distributed between the participants engaged in the activity but a greater part of it is invested in the creation of new jobs through the production of environmentally friendly goods and services.

Social economy is developed mainly by cooperatives and small, even sole proprietorships. Its purpose is to create added value and services from people to people. Excessive profit is contrary to this business philosophy. Do not get me wrong – this is not about turning back to barter trade. Accumulating money simply is not an end in itself. The profit is needed to allow the people to earn a decent living and to make additional investments in a sustainable and environmentally friendly economic model that will ensure the opening of new jobs in the process of growth.

Where did you find such examples of real functioning social economies by regions?

The film was shot mainly in Western European countries - Belgium, Germany, France, Austria, Italy and we shot a little in Greece too. I hope that in a few years, we will find here more examples of this type of sustainable development.

We visited almost 40 social enterprises and talked with more than 100 people in order for us to be able to gather enough information about the project.

It turns out that "Social economy: an alternative" is the only documentary on the subject that covers such a large number of similar projects in different European Union countries. If I have to be honest, the only reason why we did not include other examples in the film was time and budget restrictions. We wanted to visit both Denmark and Spain, which are two countries with well-developed systems of social economy.

What was the idea that instigated you to create this project?

We looked for positive examples of sustainable development in times of crisis, when the established economic model obviously is no longer able to withstand the pressure of time. Nikos Chrisogelos, who is a member of the European Green Party and a Representative of Greece to the European Parliament, helped us a lot to make the film.

What impressed you the most while you were shooting the film?

I was impressed the most by ethical banks such as GLS Bank and Folks bank in Germany, Banka Etina Populare in Italy. These banks were created by people associated with various social movements in Europe in the 1970s. In Germany, they were established by people from organizations for animal protection and in Italy, there were strong movements for protection of peace, against weaponry or against antiracist organizations. People who were part of a similar type of movements initiated the creation of the social type of economy.

Ethical banks were created on the model of all other financial institutions but they do not play on the stock market. They do not stake on high-risk or speculative operations. Like all other banks, they have deposits and loans but they do not participate in the gambling known as the world economy. They fund small and medium-sized businesses that want to develop sustainable production. They offer different banking products, which are aimed at the funding of ecological products, business initiatives with a social or an environment focus as well as at the purchase of a first home.

Most importantly, these type of banks are extremely healthy. For example, in the case of Germany, the cooperative banks that are based on the model of social economy were the only ones, which have not been affected by the recent global financial crisis. Not only did they not need aids from the state to be saved but they provided funding to other banks in order for them to avoid bankruptcy.

Ethical banks have some basic principles, which they follow consistently. One of them is the full transparency of transactions. Loans are available online and everyone, who is interested, can check on who receives loans, under what conditions and for what activity. They do not speculate on the market and provide funds only for the real economy.

Do you have a picture of the size of these banks?

The cooperative GLS Bank in Germany was established in 1992. Today, it has 26,000 members and 130,000 customers, which are small family businesses and cooperatives. 40% of the bank's portfolio is invested in businesses with social aims and another 40% is invested in the development of renewable energy sources and ecological agriculture.

Big corporations cannot create social economy in its essence. It is based on small- and medium-sized business. The large size of the corporations does not allow the average consumer to either understand or control them.

What other examples of a real application of social economy did you see?

In agriculture, there are many examples of sustainable development of socially oriented cooperatives or small businesses. In Belgium, for example, cooperative unions on a municipal basis are very common. These are schemes that do not come from above. People organize themselves alone. One of them is responsible for the planting and then his followers (the members of the cooperative) help harvest the crop. The funding for the project comes from all participants, who help not only with funds but also with work, which is then paid. Such cooperatives involve approximately 60-70 families and they are active at a regional level.
 
Another sector, in which social economy achieves a lot of good results, is the development of small production units of electricity from renewable sources. The residents of a village can create a cooperative to apply for funding and building a small photovoltaic park, for example, to reduce the cost of the electricity they use. I can give you the example of Ecopower, which began as a very small company in Belgium, and now it has a bit of everything, including photovoltaic projects, small hydroelectric production units, biomass and wind power. Currently, the same company is the supplier of the cheapest electricity in the region of Flanders.

The most common argument in the discussion on the greater use of alternative energy sources for electricity generation is that their application is still more expensive than the methods established to date (lignite, nuclear energy). How would you comment on that statement?

It should be clear that many countries in the world finance nuclear power with public funds. Nuclear power is not free; on the contrary, taxpayers pay dearly for it and the threats to human health are well known. Cheap electricity from nuclear power plants is a highly questionable concept. The management of their waste is not cheap. It is not cheap to build them either. If this money had been used for the improvement of green energy, we would have been in much better condition.

Are there Greek examples of successful operation of this model of economy?

There may not be many, but there are some. One of them is the cooperative bank Karditsa, which works under the "Development of Karditsa" programme. The bank provides funding for a small biomass-manufacturing unit and for different agricultural cooperatives.

Being the creator of the film about social economy, I would like to ask you whether you think that the examples you saw abroad can be applied more widely in Greece.

Greece is a country with very cumbersome bureaucracy, which is either lacking determination to complete a task, or is full of enthusiasm that has never been harnessed into real actions.

I want to stress that all businesses that are based on social economy in Europe have the direct support of mayoralties. If I have a small company that recycles waste and that opens jobs for the unemployed, the mayoralty may subsidize part of the employee's salary.

The companies that operate in the social economy most often cooperate with regional governments and mayoralties. They undertake to commit actions, which anyway are the responsibility of local government organizations, but they hire long-term unemployed or representatives of other weaker social groups.

In Greece, the state and municipal organizations do not communicate with ordinary citizens. Wherever you go in the state administration, you find yourself against a wall of bureaucracy or government officials who do not want to cooperate. All this determines the environment.

On the other hand, the Greek economy, by its nature, is built on small- and medium-sized businesses, on family businesses. In other words, we have a tradition in microeconomics and this gives us a great advantage for the development of social economy.

What needs to change in order for the social economy to become a driver of development, especially at a time when the established economic models obviously do not work?

It takes very good organization, an analysis of the opportunities and extraordinary perseverance. These are conditions that are not very well developed in Greece.

On the other hand, in Greece we have a tradition of cooperative activity both in tourism and in the production of olive oil, for example. Furthermore, wherever we were shooting in Europe, the people told us: "Here, we do not have much sun and we do not have wind either. Why don’t you hurry up and develop the opportunities that you have in Greece?"

How can ordinary people turn to this type of activity?

In Germany and in other countries with a more actively developed social economy, there are structures that provide help and advice to those who are interested in it. If you have a good idea, the federations of cooperative organizations can help you right from the start. They will study the feasibility of the idea, the conditions it must meet, the bureaucratic difficulties it may face and how the idea could be financed if it is feasible. There is a whole system that supports the social economy. Both the cooperative banks and the members of existing cooperatives offer advice on the development of such projects.

Do you think that the model you are offering for Greece will face resistance or opposition?

Large companies certainly would not want to allow hundreds, even thousands of their small consumers to give up the services they offer and to start using alternative sources of heating, electricity and so on.

The model of Güssing in Austria is one of the most interesting. This is a village located somewhere on the border with Hungary, which, 30 years ago, was characterized by high crime and unemployment rates. Then, the local community decided to undertake the development of alternative energy sources. First, they turned to heating. Then, the activists from Güssing developed together with the Polytechnic School in Vienna a system for electricity production from biomass.

The mayor of Güssing is one of the initiators of the change and he has been involved in this since 1992. He told us how difficult it had been in the beginning until they launched and developed the project. Large companies, which were established players at that time, were creating various difficulties for social economy initiatives in this region. Therefore, it is important not to think that it is difficult only in Greece. All the people we talked to told us how difficult it was at first. They had to convince the government and their fellow citizens of the benefits of their ideas in the context of social economy. We will have to go through the same process here too.

How do you want to see Greece in 10 years?

While I was travelling to shoot the film, I felt that I was experiencing an inner peaceful revolution. I want to see the same things happening in Greece - small production units based on the principle of social economy that creates sustainable economic growth of logical dimensions.