On 16th & 17th January 2014, social entrepreneurs, decisionmakers academics and representatives from EMN met at the conference “Social entrepreneurs: Have your say!” in Strasbourg to express their views on social entrepreneurship. The event was meant to be the closure of the Social Business Initiative launched two years ago.

The conference was a big opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge about the social entrepreneurship definition and its role in the development of the economy. As a consequence of this exchange of views, two key messages emerged from the event:

• Economy as a whole has to become more social and responsible and the EU needs to strengthen its social dimension.

• Social entrepreneurship is key to steering the whole economy in this direction and has proved to be more resilient to the crisis than ordinary businesses.

The relevancy of Social Entrepreneurship within our economy has been endorsed by the European Commission through its inclusion EaSI Program, approved on the second part of 2013; EMN welcomes the Microfinance and Social Entrepreneurship axis proposed in this program.