Regulation 2013/346 - European social entrepreneurship funds - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 115/18

Increasingly, as investors also pursue social goals and are not only seeking financial returns, a social investment market has been emerging in the Union, comprising, in part, investment funds targeting social undertakings. Such investment funds provide funding to social undertakings that act as drivers of social change by offering innovative solutions to social problems, for example by helping to tackle the social consequences of the financial crisis, and by making a valuable contribution to meeting the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy set out in the Commission Communication of 3 March 2010 entitled ‘Europe 2020: A strategy for delivering smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’.

This Regulation is part of the Social Business Initiative established by the Commission in its Communication of 25 October 2011 entitled ‘Social Business Initiative — Creating a favourable climate for social enterprises, key stakeholders in the social economy and innovation’.

It is necessary to lay down a common framework of rules regarding the use of the designation ‘EuSEF’ for qualifying social entrepreneurship funds, in particular on the composition of the portfolio of funds that operate under that designation, their eligible investment targets, the investment tools they may employ and the categories of investors that are eligible to invest in them by uniform rules in the Union. In the absence of such a common framework, there is a risk that Member States take diverging measures at national level having a direct negative impact on, and creating obstacles to, the proper functioning of the internal market, since funds that wish to operate across the Union would be subject to different rules in different Member States. Moreover, diverging quality requirements on portfolio composition, investment targets and eligible investors could lead to different levels of investor protection and generate confusion as to the investment proposition associated with qualifying social entrepreneurship funds. Investors should, furthermore, be able to compare the investment propositions of different qualifying social entrepreneurship funds. It is necessary to remove significant obstacles to cross-border fundraising by qualifying social entrepreneurship funds, to avoid distortions of competition between those funds, and to prevent any further likely obstacles to trade and significant distortions of competition from arising in the future. Consequently, the appropriate legal basis for this Regulation is Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), as interpreted by consistent case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

It is necessary to adopt a regulation establishing uniform rules applicable to qualifying social entrepreneurship funds and imposing corresponding obligations on their managers in all Member States that wish to raise capital across the Union using the designation ‘EuSEF’. Those requirements should ensure the confidence of investors that wish to invest in such funds. The regulation should not apply to existing national...