Agricultural cooperative in Europe are experimenting with innovation in internal governance structures. Due to changes in the market environment, but also in business organisation legislation, cooperatives feel the need to adjust their internal governance in order to enhance market orientation, attract high quality managers, strengthen member commitment, and overall reinforce cooperative entrepreneurship. In this paper we present an overview of the different innovations in the internal governance mechanisms that can be found among agricultural cooperatives in the European Union. We present theoretical explanations for these innovations and we discuss their implications for member control and manager accountability, but also for performance and further development of the cooperative.