Cooperatives constitute a "creation" of the social necessity for equal opportunities in the production and disposal of products. Nevertheless, the development and redistributive role of cooperatives in Crete has become open to controversy throughout the recent years, due to the problems of development and management that the co-operative organizations are called upon to face. In order to examine the economic environment and the competitiveness of cooperative Unions in Crete, a study aiming at the discovery of solutions for the reforming and increasing of competition among of agricultural unions was conducted. Distillation of this study constitutes the present article.