Ministers and state secretaries of sport of the 27 Member States of the European Union held a discussion about challenges in sport at the meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council (EYCS).

At the Brussels meeting, it was stated that the promotion of health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) in the EU is an essential issue. "Hungary welcomes the initiative of the EU Sport Week, which would coordinate and further develop the already existing sporting events"- said Dr István Simicskó, who represented Hungary as the Minister of State for Sport of the Ministry of Human Resources. Dr Simicskó supported the establishment of an EU Sport Week during the policy debate organised for the EU sport ministers.

At the EYCS Council meeting, it was also mentioned that sport politicians must also pay attention to the economic significance of sport. It is important that policy decisions should be taken on the basis of factual data. Accordingly, members of the EYCS Council adopted conclusions on strengthening the evidence base for sport policy-making. According to the conclusions, the satellite accounts measuring sport’s contribution to the economy facilitate well-founded policy making.

The satellite account is a statistical tool, which is used for the measurement of sport-related economic data (e.g. the contribution of sport to the GDP, the effect of sport on employment, etc.)

Members of the EYCS Council endorsed the presidency conclusions on establishing a strategy to combat the manipulation of sport results. Hungarian experts participated in the development of the conclusions and are also contributing to the preparation of a European convention on combating match-fixing initiated by the Council of Europe.

The selection of the EU Representatives at the Foundation Board of the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) was another important topic at the meeting. The new members will be representing the interests of the EU at the Board for 3 years beginning from the 1st January 2013. The Council confirmed the candidature of Ministers Leo Varadkar (Ireland), Romain Schneider (Luxemburg) and Alexandre Miguel Mestre (Portugal).

(Ministry of Human Resources, State Secretariat for Sport)