• EU Sport Forum 27 November 2008
  
  As announced in our EHFA Update No. 4, EHFA was invited to speak at the European Commission’s EU Sport Forum in Biarritz on 27 November where key sport stakeholders discussed the implementation of the 2007 White Paper on Sport, the financing of grassroots sport and the specificity of sport.
  
  The Forum took place in connection with the informal meeting of EU Sports Ministers under the French EU Presidency on 28 November. 
  
  The EU Sport Forum is a follow-up to the Commission's White Paper on Sport that was published in July 2007 and it will become the key annual event within the EU-level structured dialogue on sport set up by the European Commission. The Forum in Biarritz was attended by about 200 leading representatives from European sport organisations, national sport confederations, National Olympic Committees and international sport stakeholders.

The first session was dedicated to a progress made in implementing the White Paper on Sport in specific areas, such as EU social dialogue, and education in sport.

EHFA’s Executive Director, Herman Rutgers, participated in this session and delivered a speech on “Professional Qualifications”.

In his speech he welcomed, on behalf of the Health & Fitness industry, the draft EU Physical Guidelines (please see EHFA Update No. 5), as part of the White Paper on Sport, which are vital to our sector. He then moved on to two fundamental EU tools for our industry and emphasized that “EQF and ECVET have been recognized by EHFA as crucial for our sector since 2005, as in our business the human factor makes all the difference”.  As to practical application of ECVET, he shared with the audience the latest announcement about EHFA receiving the EU funding for a three year project  (see more information below) where “the concept of ECVET will be tested at the frontline of operational practice with the leading organisations in the sector”.  

The full speech of Herman Rutgers can be downloaded here.

The second session of the Forum included two high-level panel debates chaired by a sport journalist. The first panel was dedicated to the financing of grassroots sport and the results of a French Presidency study on the public and private financing of sport. The second panel debated on the specificity of sport which has seen a major intensification since the adoption of the Commission's White Paper on Sport, with several high-level processes on the governmental and non-governmental sides.

A joint lunch with EU Sports Ministers formally closed the Forum. Its results were presented to EU Sports Ministers the following day (please see below).

• Informal Sports Ministers Meeting Biarritz 27/28 November 2008

The main focus was on preparing for the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, which is a permanent agenda item for the European sports ministers, in terms of the recommendations of the White Paper on Sport and of the 'Pierre de Coubertin' action plan adopted in 2007.

Three priorities were being developed during the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union and had been discussed in Biarritz.

These three priorities were broken down into a number of themes:
- sport and health
- the anti-doping campaign
- the twofold training project for sports players
- rules to strengthen clubs' regional or national links
- the establishment of a satellite account for sport
- a study of public and private sports funding in Europe
- control of the profession of sports players' agents
- study and planning of a self-regulation system for the sports movement.

The Biarritz meeting of Sports Ministers followed on from the meeting organised under the Slovenian presidency on 16 / 17 March 2008 in Brdo (Slovenia). Informal meetings of EU Sports Ministers began in 1988 and, since 1999, have been held every six months.

The conclusions outlining the concrete outcomes of the Sports Ministers meeting in Biarritz can be downloaded here.