Berlin: (hib/EMU) By the second half of 2023, a “National Strategy for Social Innovations and Public Interest-Oriented Companies” is to be developed and published. This is what the federal government said in a reply (20/6465) on a small request (20/6168) of the AfD parliamentary group. The lead management lies with the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
The AfD MPs had asked about strategic concepts for public interest-oriented companies and how their non-profit status would be defined. The answer states that the federal government’s start-up strategy uses the term “common good-oriented company”: This refers to companies that fulfill the term “social enterprise”, as defined in the Social Business Initiative of the European Commission (COM(2011) 682 final).
According to this, a company is characterized as being oriented towards the common good if “social goals that serve the common good are the reason for entrepreneurial activity, which is often expressed through a high degree of social innovation,” writes the federal government. In addition, the majority of profits would have to be reinvested in order to achieve the social goal and the ownership or organizational structure would ensure the pursuit of the social goal.