La Lega

Italy's largest umbrella group for cooperatives, La Lega promotes the interests of the cooperative sector at all levels of government, and conducts research to measure and influence public opinion about cooperatives. La Lega (or Legacoop) covers more than 17,000 cooperatives: approximately 5,000 worker co-ops, 3,000 agricultural co-ops, 2,000 consumer co-ops, 5,000 housing co-ops, 2,000 mixed-form co-ops, and hundreds of specialized co-ops in such fields as transportation and fishing (Smith 2001). By 2002, La Lega's total membership exceeded 6 million people, or slightly more than 10 percent of the Italian population. Of these members, 4.6 million belonged to La Lega's consumer co-ops. La Lega's turnover in 2002 was 38 billion Euros.