With Note n. 4477 of 22 May last, the Ministry of Labor provided clarifications regarding the identification in the statute of the activities pursuant to art. 5 paragraph 1 of the Third Sector Code by the associations affiliated to the so-called national networks.
The proposed case concerns the associations which, when applying for registration in the registers of the APS or the ODV, presented statutes based on Legislative Decree no. 117/2017, in which all the activities referred to in article 5 of the same decree were contemplated.
The Ministry notes that the corporate purpose, also to protect the objectives of knowing the third sector entities, their characteristics and their work, cannot be indefinite. This is what happens in the case of a statutory provision which slavishly lists all or almost all the activities referred to in article 5: it is not a question of a (misunderstood) exercise of autonomy but of the non-compliance (albeit involuntary) of the principle of transparency, primarily to the detriment of those who are precluded from joining "a group whose activities and purposes are clearly identified (and reasonably linked to each other)." The necessary punctual selection for the purposes of inclusion in the statute of the activity or activities that constitute the corporate object, according to a criterion aimed at defining the entity, does not in any way limit the possibility for the latter to vary this object, also through possible but always reasonable extensions or modifications: however, this variation must be the consequence of an evolution, the fruit of the will of the associates.
These principles cannot be disregarded by associations belonging to national networks, simply citing as justification the need (a priori and apodictically stated) to maintain the possibility of being involved in activities carried out by other entities belonging to the same associative network.
Avoiding or circumventing this necessary path would end up making it particularly difficult to evaluate the actual pursuit by the entity of civic, solidarity or social utility purposes, by the shareholders, directors, public administrations responsible for control, considering that these aims must find concrete expression both in the statutory representation that the entity gives of itself, and in the effective pursuit of its activities; otherwise these aims would remain the enunciation of a mere style clause within the statutes themselves.
