cooperation.law

Acting together binds us.

European association (ECBA)

The question

Is there a legal form in which people from several European states can join together for a non-profit purpose without some of them having to submit to a foreign national law?

In brief

No. There is no European association. A first proposal for a European association statute from the early 1990s was withdrawn in 2005. In 2023 the Commission instead proposed a directive on European cross-border associations (ECBA). The European Parliament approved it in March 2024, it made no progress in the Council, and in October 2025 the Commission announced that it would withdraw the proposal.

The law

The gap. For business, the European Union has created its own forms: the European Company (SE), the European Cooperative Society (SCE) and the European Economic Interest Grouping (EEIG), which may only support its members’ economic activity. For bodies with a non-profit purpose there is nothing comparable. Anyone wanting to found an association across borders has to choose one state’s law.

This is more than an administrative burden. The thesis of this page is that global non-profit cooperation lacks legal forms. States cooperate within international law. For profit-oriented business an order has grown over decades, with choice of law, arbitration and trusted legal systems for international dealings. Communities without a capital interest, by contrast, must organise under national rules. That is a hurdle, and it creates an imbalance between members who know that law, language and those authorities and members who do not. In a cooperation, such imbalances are always potential points of dispute.

The first attempt. In the early 1990s the Commission put forward a package: statutes for a European association, a European cooperative society and a European mutual society. Only the cooperative was realised, as the SCE in 2003. The Commission withdrew the proposal for the European association in 2005.

Parliament’s initiative. On 17 February 2022 the European Parliament adopted a resolution asking the Commission to propose two acts: a regulation creating a European form of association, and a directive setting common minimum standards for non-profit organisations.

The proposed directive. On 5 September 2023 the Commission took a different route with its proposal for a directive on European cross-border associations (COM(2023) 516). It does not create a European legal form; it requires each Member State to introduce the ECBA into its national law under common rules (Art. 3(1)). The key ones:

  • Profits may be used only for the objectives in the statutes and may not be distributed to members (Art. 3(2)); assets remain locked even on dissolution (recital 19).
  • At least three founding members with links to at least two Member States are required, and the ECBA must carry out, or aim to carry out, activities in at least two Member States (Art. 3(3), Art. 16(2)).
  • Founders may be EU citizens, persons lawfully resident in the Union and non-profit legal entities established in the Union (Art. 3(1)).
  • The ECBA acquires legal personality on registration and is recognised by all other Member States without further registration (Arts. 5(1), 12(1)); applications are to be decided within 30 days (Art. 19(1)).
  • An ECBA may transfer its registered office to another Member State without being dissolved.

The procedure. The European Parliament adopted its first-reading position on 13 March 2024. In the Council, the Company Law Working Party examined the proposal; the Council Legal Service raised doubts about the legal basis, and Member States asked for a supplementary impact assessment. The Council reached no common position. In its work programme for 2026 of 21 October 2025, the Commission listed the proposal among those it intends to withdraw within six months (COM(2025) 870, Annex IV). In January 2026 more than 250 civil society organisations urged it in an open letter not to do so. Whether the withdrawal has since been formally completed could not be established with certainty [prüfen].

What it would achieve

An ECBA would be registered once and recognised everywhere. A community would not need to found a separate organisation in each state where it works, and members from different states would join a form whose basic rules are the same throughout. The asset lock would show donors and supporters that funds serve the purpose.

Two limits would remain. The ECBA would be registered under the law of one Member State, so the question of the home legal order would not disappear, only lose weight. And the proposal is confined to the Union: a community with many members outside the EU would not find a complete framework in it, and charitable tax status would remain a matter of national law.

Online

Online communities are the clearest case. Their members are spread across many countries, they meet live online and work together asynchronously, and they have no natural seat. A national legal form forces them to choose a seat, a law and a register language that belong to only some of them. How members deliberate and vote, by contrast, can already be set out for online in any set of articles.

What can be done today

  • Found a national association and open it to members from other states. The German association requires no residence in Germany and permits virtual general meetings. The choice of state turns on language, registry practice and tax law.
  • Choose a form designed for international bodies, such as the Belgian AISBL or the Swiss association. For initial orientation see Legal forms compared.
  • Build a network of national associations under an umbrella body whose members are the national associations. This spreads the weight more evenly but takes more effort.
  • Frame internal rules for an international membership: working languages, time zones, deadlines, online meetings, choice of law and dispute resolution. See Across borders and Resolving conflicts.

In which phases

Limits of this account

This page reflects the state of the procedure as far as it could be established from public sources. EU legislative procedures change, and the position should be checked again before any decision.

As at 30 September 2026