DEFINITION AND OBJECTIVES OF COOPERATIVES

INTRODUCTION

When examining Spanish cooperative law, irrespective of the topic under study, the first salient factor is the coexistence of different laws governing cooperatives. Spain is divided into a number of Autonomous Communities, each of which has assumed exclusive competence in cooperative matters within its own boundaries. As a result, 16 of these 17 autonomous regions have passed a Cooperatives Law.

Th is multiplicity of laws coexists with a national Cooperatives Law, Law 27/1999 of 16 July 1999 (hereinafter LC), which applies to cooperatives that do not concentrate the greater part of their activity with their members in any particular Autonomous Community (LC art. 2). Moreover, the national law is applied in addition to that of the Autonomous Community in the event of any lack in the latter law (Spanish Constitution of 6 December 1978, art. 149.3).

Moreover some types of cooperative are subject to special laws, as in the case of credit cooperatives, insurance cooperatives or transport cooperatives.

The LC is also the reference of other laws regulating the taxation and accounting of cooperatives, such as the Fiscal System for Cooperatives Law no. 20 of 19 December 1990 (hereinafter LRFC), and the Order EHA/3360/2010, of 21 December 2010 adopting the Rules concerning the accountancy aspects of cooperative societies. However, the Communities of Navarra and the Basque Country have their own tax laws on cooperatives.

In view of this situation, the examination of Spanish cooperative legislation in this book is based on national Law 27/1999, this being what we may call the common legal system, but also takes the peculiarities of the current regional laws into account.

THE LEGAL CONCEPT OF COOPERATIVE

The Spanish national Cooperatives Law of 1999 states that a cooperative is a society set up by people who associate to conduct business activities directed at meeting their economic and social needs and aspirations, on the basis of freedom to join and to leave voluntarily, and with a democratic structure and operating democratically in accordance with the principles drawn up by the International Co-operative Alliance, as provided for in this Law (LC art. 1).