2.4 The social purpose in the Belgian, Greek, and UK social enterprise law

This Sub-section 2.4 examines the place of the social purpose variable in each of the three selected tailor-made legal frameworks for social enterprises. The Commission’s definition emphasised that one distinguishing criterion for social enterprises is that they pursue a social purpose in order to generate social impact rather than profit for their owners and the shareholders (see Sub-section 2.2). Below, we will examine whether social enterprises that use each of the three tailor-made legal forms, i.e. the VSO, the Koinsep and the CIC, are required to pursue objectives, which are either social and of a not-for-profit nature and/or commercial and of a for-profit nature. For instance, the law may require that a social enterprise have explicit objectives that seek to benefit the community and/ or society. Furthermore, a social enterprise may often have a hybrid character, i.e. a commercial and entrepreneurial nature combined with a social character. It is then important to examine whether the law contains specific requirements in view of the social character of the enterprise’s entrepreneurial activities in order to realise the social objectives. As such, it is important to examine the legal obligations regarding the social purpose of the legal form and the means by which such purpose is implemented in the constitutional documents of the legal form, such as the AoA, memoranda or Statutes of Association (hereafter ‘SoA’) for example.