As defined in law, “A cooperative is a moral person, grouping of individuals or corporations that share common economic or social needs and which go into partnership to run a business according to the rules of cooperative action.” To be part of a cooperative offers several advantages: the cooperative belongs to the members, each member has a right to vote regardless of the number of shares he holds, the shares keep their nominal value and the members draw their profits in the form of annual returns. Furthermore, each member can speak at the annual general assembly and is eligible to sit as an administrator on the cooperative’s board of directors.

Cooperatives are founded on the following principles:

• mutual aid
• responsibility
• democracy
• equality
• fairness
• solidarity

he Declaration of Cooperative Identity, which articulates the six basic cooperative principles, was adopted by the International Cooperative Alliance, and is recognized by the whole of the cooperative movement around the world. These principles are, to some extent, the framework used by the members to put into practice the values of cooperation.