The legal framework for the social economy in Greece was an attempt to institutionalise this particular sector of the economy. The first relevant Law 4019/2011 with the title "Social Economy and Social Entrepreneurship", although had delayed in relation to European data, introduced for the first time the so-called Social Economy and Social Entrepreneurship area, while providing for a new form of social entrepreneurship, based on the already existing form of the urban cooperative society, the one of Social Cooperative Society. At the same time, it regulated the categories, the licensing procedure and the operating principles of this new business. Finally, it acknowledged the social action of already existing economic operators, where the legal status was unclear (e.g. unions) and presented the Social Economy Registry.
This legal framework, although it is only a first step, has created a number of ambiguities -especially in the operation of civic cooperatives- and has been improved by the recent Law 4430/2016 titled "Social and Solidarity Economy and Development of its Bodies and Other Provisions". The innovations of this law are the introduction of the concept of solidarity economy along with the technical improvement of the vague provisions in the previous law in relation to the tax and insurance framework of the Social Cooperatives.
