Employee ownership: Bridging competitiveness and shared prosperity

This fringe event is organized as part of the “EO Days 2026”- a two-day series of events in Brussels designed to advance the practice and policy of employee ownership across Europe. For more information on the overarching event and other sessions, please go to https://ied.si/eo-days/. 

Employee ownership is gaining momentum across Europe as a way to promote democratic control over the economy, better sharing of gains from economic activity, and as means to improve productivity and sovereignty. Employee ownership is also an answer to the big and growing problem of business succession for a large number of European companies that are owned by private individuals and do not have immediate successors. When they are faced with an option to sell the business to private equity funds, employee ownership offers an attractive alternative. Moreover, the recent strategic turn of the global economic relations puts the question of who owns and controls European production in the spotlight.

In practice, employee ownership in Europe remains fragmented, advancing at different speed country by country without the cross-border exchange of knowledge, models and policy tools that could accelerate its growth. There is clearly a case for better coordination and exchange on this topic that would feed into the elaboration of a supporting policy framework and the spread of best practices.

EO Days 2026 will bring together practitioners, policymakers, financial institutions, business owners, chambers of commerce, trade unions, advisors, and NGOs to explore how employee ownership can support economic democracy, competitiveness and strengthen the continent’s economic sovereignty. 

The FEPS fringe session will focus on the benefit of employee ownership for competitiveness and shared prosperity, on where employee ownership stands today and the experiences of different countries. It will consist of 3 main parts:

• Panel 1 — Employee Ownership: Bridging Competitiveness and Shared Prosperity
• Panel 2 — The State of Employee Ownership in the EU
• Presentation of case studies on France and Spain

For more details, see the attached agenda on this page.

Why Attend

• Get a comparative, country-by-country view of employee ownership models and legislative developments across Europe
• Understand the real barriers to scaling employee ownership – financing, legislation and taxation – and what needs to change
• Connect with advisors, policymakers, business owners and association leaders working at the forefront of this movement

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact Luis Sáez Jiménez, FEPS Project Officer (luis.saez@feps-europe.eu).

This fringe event is organised by FEPS in collaboration with IED and with the support of FEBEA – European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks and Financiers, Fondazione Messina, Fundació Seira and SOCODEN.