For the EU Court of Justice social cooperatives are not non-profit entities for the purpose of the extension of art. 57 CTS
In January 2021 we informed you that the Council of State had referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union the question of compatibility with Community legislation of art. 57 of the Code of the Third Sector that allows the direct entrustment of emergency and emergency health transport services to Voluntary Organizations, in derogation from the obligation to experiment with a tender, in application of Directive 2014/24/EU. The latter provides that the Member States may proceed with the direct entrustment of these services to non-profit organisations.
The question referred to the Court concerned the question whether cooperatives could be treated in the same way as ODV for these purposes.
Well, the Court has expressed itself denying the extension of art. 57 CTS to social cooperatives on the assumption that organisations based on employee ownership or their active participation in corporate governance cannot be equated with the non-profit organisations referred to:art. 10, lett. h) of Directive 2014/24, il quale deve essere interpretato nel senso che “esso does not preclude national legislation providing that emergency and emergency health transport services may be allocated by convention, as a matter of priority, only to voluntary organisations and not to social cooperatives which may distribute to members refreshments related to their activities".
