the Council. Thus, this Council is set up as the institution that provides visibility to the various organizations in the social economy. Furthermore, and due to the decentralization of powers that characterizes Spain's territorial system, there are different substantive rules regarding the various entities in the social economy whose regulation falls within the scope of the regional governments, giving rise to the existence of similar institutions within each autonomous community of industry participants. The different forms of cooperatives and, among them, the ones of associated workers, consumers, housing, agricultural, services, seafarers, credit, education, health, insurance and transport cooperatives, worker-owned societies and associations, foundations and mutual societies, insertion companies, special employment centers, agricultural processing companies and fishermen's associations share the guiding principles of the social economy. All these organizations are covered, directly or indirectly, by the aforementioned articles of the Spanish Constitution. Their principles confer on them a distinct and specific character with regard to other types of commercial companies and organizations in Spain. A national confederation of social economy enterprises was established in 1992, CEPES (Confederación Empresarial Española de Economía Social), to represent the interests of its membership and provide a platform for institutional dialogues with public authorities and the organization has matured through the political integration. Today, CEPES is a confederation with national scope and cross-sector membership and is recognized as an institution of the highest level in Spain's economy. Each year, the organization collects data and publishes several reports on the state of the social economy sector in both Spain and the Mediterranean. Comparative data of the Spanish social economy relative to similar sectors in other parts of the world are also reported. Latin America In Spanish-speaking Latin-American countries (such as Argentina, Venezuela and Cuba) the concept of economía social is accepted. The government of Hugo Chávez believed that the informal sector could be absorbed into the social economy of Venezuela by strictly controlling (or nationalising) large firms and creating new forms of private enterprise which were more accessible to the poor. Wage labour was seen as a source of exploitation, and the government hoped to reduce (or eliminate) it by promoting corporate governance, family and cooperative businesses and restricting labour contracts. The government planned to provide technology, training, finance and exclusive contracts to small enterprises so that they could survive in the national marketplace. European Union At the European level, the French concept predominates. In 1989, the