Oev Pushes Social Entrepreneurship as Jobs Lever in Cyprus

Cyprus's Employers and Industrialists Federation (Oev) is positioning social enterprises as a tool to expand employment and labour-market participation, according to an announcement it released on Monday reviewing a conference it hosted late last month.

The conference, held on October 21 at Oev's headquarters in Nicosia, carried the title "Social Entrepreneurship and Inclusion: From Idea to Participation, Employment and Social Change". It was co-organised by three bodies: Oev itself, the Co-operative Societies Service — which serves as the competent authority for social enterprises in Cyprus — and cultural organisation Neophytos.

The event had two stated aims. First, present the institutional framework that governs social enterprises on the island. Second, explore how much room these businesses have to grow in Cyprus, while examining the role of responsible business practices in driving social inclusion.

Who opened the conference?

The opening addresses came from four sides of the debate:

• Paris Anastasiou, Oev's director of business development and green transition;
• Loukas Ioannou and Aristidis Charalambous, representing cultural organisation Neophytos;
• Kypros Protopapas, Registrar of Co-operative Societies and Social Enterprises;
• Grigoria Gavriilidou, political affairs officer at the European Commission Representation in Cyprus.

That line-up matters. It put the federation, the regulator and a European institution on the same platform, which signals that the topic sits at the intersection of business policy, official oversight and EU-level interest. The takeaway: Oev is not treating social entrepreneurship as a fringe issue but as a policy conversation with institutional backing.

What does Oev actually want?

The federation framed the October 21 event as part of a wider push to promote social entrepreneurship and broaden employment opportunities across the Cypriot economy, while encouraging what it calls meaningful participation in the labour market.

Oev said it seeks to contribute to building a business environment that generates both economic and social value. It listed three concrete mechanisms for doing that:

• informing businesses about the social-enterprise model;
• facilitating the exchange of experiences between companies;
• strengthening cooperation with the relevant organisations.

The federation added that these efforts are intended to support social entrepreneurship while expanding opportunities for employment and meaningful participation in the labour market. In plain words: Oev wants more companies to know the rules, more of them to learn from each other, and more of them working with the state and civil-society bodies that regulate and support the sector.

Why the regulator's presence counts

The involvement of the Co-operative Societies Service as co-organiser is a structural detail worth flagging. That service is the competent authority for social enterprises in Cyprus, meaning it holds the registry and the oversight function for the legal form. Having Registrar Kypros Protopapas speak at an employer-fed event ties the business lobby's agenda directly to the official framework it must operate within.

The European Commission Representation's participation through Grigoria Gavriilidou adds a second layer. It connects the Nicosia discussion to the wider EU conversation on social economy and inclusion, without the conference itself being an EU event. The takeaway: the institutional framework Oev wants businesses to understand was explained by the people who actually administer it.

The bigger picture

Monday's announcement makes Oev's position explicit: it sees social enterprises as a route to a labour market that includes more people, not just as a niche legal structure. The conference on October 21 served as the federation's platform to lay out that case, bring in the regulator and the Commission representation, and commit to continued cooperation.

The next test is follow-through. Oev has pledged information, experience-sharing and partnerships as its working methods — whether those translate into more registered social enterprises and wider employment in Cyprus will show in the sector's numbers ahead.