Istanbul Gelisim University - IGU Hosted CIRIEC General Assembly

IGU Hosted CIRIEC General Assembly

Plenary meeting of the International Public, Social and Cooperative Economy Research and Information Center (CIRIEC) where some of the cooperative organizations from Turkey are members, was held at Istanbul Gelişim University (IGU).

CIRIEC is a non-governmental organization which IGU represents its committee in Turkey comes from experts and academics. It cooperates with scientific studies and professionals aiming to create a public, social or cooperative economy that can be an alternative to the liberal market economy, and also conducts various European Union projects.

IGU Rector and also Chairman of CIRIEC in Turkey Prof. Dr. Burhan Aykac started his speech stating that CIRIEC founded in Belgium in 1947 is the international scientific organization concerned with social economy: “Our university here the representative of Turkey. We became a member with our national committee last year. We are working on social economy. We held the last general meeting of this year”.

“WAITING TO INCREASE OF PARTICIPATION”

Prof. Dr. Aykaç continued his speech:
"Republic of Turkey is social state of law. As a matter of fact, the social economy is the main subject of CIRIEC. As a university, we will organize various organizations related to social economy and organize international meetings. We’ve invited all co-operatives and social economy organizations from Turkey. There were about 25 participants. We expect this number to increase in the future”.

“SHARING EXPERIENCES IS VERY IMPORTANT”

Bernard Thiry, General Manager of Ciriec and Professor of Economics at Liege University said: “We reviewed all our international partnerships. We have a partnership within the International Labor Organization (ILO). And of course, we will have different connections for the development of the social economy with the private sector”.

Stating that international ties are important in this regard, Prof. Dr. Thiry added: 'It is very important for us to learn about both good and bad experiences of countries in the field of social economy, cooperatives and public economics. CIRIEC is trying to make these organizations all over the world. We have members all over the Americas, Japan and Europe. We do these meetings alternately in different countries. We have the opportunity to learn in depth the realities and practices of the country where the gathering takes place'.

“THESE ARE IMPORTANT HEADLINES THAT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN”

IGU Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Nail Öztaş stated that CIRIEC takes into account the economic and ecological disorders in societies and added: 'The basic aim is to provide the social justice, through the factories established by public organizations or the organizations producing goods and services, to achieve equilibrium with the market, to prevent the excesses of the liberal market economy'.

Prof. Dr. Öztaş also gave information about CIRIEC's future program: The biennial scientific meeting will address the themes of sustainability and environmental problems in Bucharest in 2019. These are actually very important topics that we have forgotten between political debates. It is compatible with the definition of the social state in our constitution, but these public, social and co-operative economies, especially cooperatives, have remained weak. The economic enterprises of the public were privatized and their numbers decreased. Therefore, it is a structure that has an area of activity that will address to an important gap”.