After being announced in April 2014 by the President of the Italian Council of Ministers, the Camera (?) approved in April 2015 a statutory delegation text that is currently being debated in the Senate of the Republic. By reforming the third sector, this law deals with the entrepreneurial entities of the third Italian sector, social enterprises and social cooperatives. The reform is called both to modify a specific part of the Italian Civil Code and to create a sector code (Third Sector) that collects and coordinates all the provisions of the current disciplines and provides common provisions.

The social enterprise is affected by all the profiles of the reform, even general ones and common to all entities in the third sector. The novelties that the reform should introduce in relation to the current discipline may, however, have a certain impact on the legal identity of the social enterprise. Among the requirements for the qualification of a social enterprise, this is required to achieve "positive social impacts" through its business activities: results that should be subject to information and communication by the social enterprises themselves, through the budget instrument Social Balance and the assessment by the authorities in charge. More interesting, however, is the reference to the involvement, besides employees and users, of all those involved in the activities of the social enterprise. An extension of the areas of social utility is also envisaged, including, in particular, "those of fair trade, work services aimed at the employment of disadvantaged workers, social housing and the provision of microcredit by individuals which is enabled according to current legislation ". Another novelty is on the remuneration of share capital and the distribution of profits. The reform recognizes for the social enterprise the possibility of remuneration, under conditions and limits. Finally, the reform provides the possibility for private companies and public administrations to take over social positions in the corporate governance bodies.

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