The legal infrastructure of the third sector and the social economy in the Netherlands

In the taxonomy of organizational forms in the Netherlands, the concepts of the third sector and social economy are not well-known and not often used. Organizational forms with a social objective, however, can be found in three distinctive areas: 1) semi-public organizations in health care, education and social housing, commonly incorporated as foundations and regulated under sectoral laws, 2) civil society organizations, commonly incorporated as associations and foundations, which under strict conditions qualify for the fiscal status of Public benefit organization, and 3) social enterprises, in practice incorporated in a variety of organizational forms. To date, social enterprises are not regulated in the Netherlands. A legal infrastructure is missing. There are no tax incentives or other financial inducement for social enterprises. Recent legislative proposals only address social enterprises incorporated as private companies. So far, the legislator has shown little attention to the potential of cooperatives and their principles of mutuality and solidarity, as applied in the growing number of cases of socio-labor insertion.