The Experiences of employees participation in Spanish workers' cooperatives and their impact on EC's social and labor policy

南欧工人合作社运动最近的发展，特别是在以蒙达龙合作社为中心的西班牙，对国际合作社运动产生了可取的影响。这种发展具有重要意义，不仅是因为这种发展证明了合作社部门工人自我管理的可行性，而且还可能为苏联式社会主义经济崩溃后的第三世界提供某种替代的发展模式。工人合作社现在被理解为欧洲联盟的一个重要概念--社会经济的核心机构。社会经济可以被解释为以达到各种社会目的为目的的各种经济活动，而不是简单地通过劳动者自己的民主管理来谋利。欧盟委员会最近关于欧洲合作社规约指令的提案草案只是一个例子，表明欧盟委员会认为欧洲一级的合作社的法律框架比以往任何时候都更加重要。另一方面，关于雇员参与资本主义公司，特别是跨国公司的方式和程度的辩论仍在继续，试图找到一些折衷的观点。但可以肯定的是，无论员工以何种形式在欧洲实现参与，以及合作社部门最近的发展，都将对日本经济产生重大影响。

The recent development of workers' cooperative movement in Southern Europe, particularly in Spain centering around Mondragon Cooperatives, has given a desirable impact on the international cooperative movement. It is significant not only because such development demonstrates the viability of workers' self-management in cooper-ative sector but also it may give some alternative model of development to the third world after the collapse of Soviet-type socialist economy.The workers' cooperatives are now understood as a nucleus institution for 'social economy', an important concept of European Unions. Social economy could be explained as all kinds of economic activities which aims at acheeving various social purposes rather than simple making profits through democratic management by working poeple themselves. The recent draft proposal by the EC Commission over the Directive for a European Cooperative Statute is just an example which indicates tnat EC sees the legal framework of cooperatives at European level more important as ever.On the other hand the debate over the method and extent of employees' participation in the capitalist companies, multi-nationals in particular, has still continued, searchig for some compromising point. Yet it is certain that the realization of employees' participation in Europe in whatever form as well as the recent development of the cooperatives sector will give an great impact on Japanese economy.