This article traces the evolution of FEBEA’s political role over time. Founded in 2001 as a coordination network that pooled resources among pioneering European ethical finance institutions, FEBEA has gradually developed into a collective political actor within European finance. Today, it functions not only as a federation, but also as an enabling infrastructure for democratic finance: it translates grassroots experience into policy discourse and helps strengthen civic capacity. Its political agency operates through a circular dynamic, drawing legitimacy from member practices, shaping debate and policy at the EU level, and then channeling institutional gains back to reinforce community action.

By challenging the technocratic logic that often dominates finance, FEBEA and its membership demonstrate that finance can be oriented toward social justice priorities. This helps explain its close engagement with DG EMPL and DG GROW, and its decision to prioritize files that are more social than technical, such as the Social Economy Action Plan, the EU Affordable Housing Plan, and broader debates on sustainable finance, the proportionality in banking regulation, or the efforts to reinforce the social windows of InvestEU, and initiatives supporting the Palestinian economy, as well as COVID-19 relief measures.

Read the full article at: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=10506153

Read also other articles (Spanish) around ethical finance in the same edition of the Ibero-American Journal of Solidarity Economy and Socioecological Innovation: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/revista/26339/A/2025