The law of third sector organizations in Europe. Foundations, trends and prospects

The term ‘third sector’ is not commonly used in Belgium, but the reality it refers to is not unknown. During the 19th century, society evolved to be organised into ‘pillars’ (catholic, liberal and socialist), each of which consisted of institutions and organisations such as political parties, youth movements, mutual health organisations, trade unions, banking and insurance cooperatives, education networks, etc. All of these interacted with both civil society and the public authority. Although this system has evolved over time and is now largely outdated, there are still traces of it and there is a significant presence of actors on the borderline between business, functional public service and non-profit organisations. Despite its importance, this sector has not benefited from a uniform and coherent regulation. There are, of course, many regulations specific to each particular activity, which will not be discussed in this chapter. Apart from that, the initiatives taken to grant some form of recognition or status to this sector – whatever its exact limits or definition – have remained ad hoc and have tended to be the fruits of legislative accidents rather than the result of a coherent policy. Nor have they achieved widespread social recognition: they involve a small number of actors (compared to the number they could poten-tially include), they do not last long before being abrogated or fundamentally modified, and they are hardly known to the public at large. In practice, the third sector therefore uses a range of legal structures spreading over associations and company law. Although numbers vary according to the sources, the non-profit association is clearly, by far, the most commonly chosen social form for enterprises of the social economy.