President Svein Arne Hansen and a delegation from European Athletics were welcomed by European Commissioner Tibor Navracsics in Brussels on Tuesday for a discussion of how the two organisations can cooperate to further their shared interests.
Navracsics, a Member of the Commission with responsibility for sport, opened the meeting by thanking European Athletics for its efforts to promote the Commission’s European Week of Sport initiative earlier this month.
“It was a very cordial and productive meeting that showed us the Commissioner really appreciates the importance of athletics and what we as a sport can deliver. It is clear that he wants to work with us in a number of areas,” said Hansen.
Hansen said his priority for the meeting was to find ways that European Athletics and its Member Federations could access funding from the Commission’s Erasmus+ programme, which includes a budget of more than 230 million euros for sport projects between 2015 and 2020.
“Everyone agreed that athletics, with nearly 50 million recreational runners, a network of Member Federations and more than 20,000 clubs in the 28 EU countries, could play a big role in the Commission’s efforts to promote grassroots sport,” said Hansen.
According to Hansen, concrete follow-up actions will now be organised at the staff level.
“I have also invited the Commissioner to send representatives to our Clubs System and Youth Conference in November so they can get a deeper understanding of how we in athletics work and see some examples of best practice.”
Attending the meeting together with Hansen was Vice President Jean Gracia, who chairs the Member Federation Development Commission, and Honorary President Hansjörg Wirz.
The European Week of Sport (EWoS), which took place from 7 to 13 September, was initiated by the Commission with the aim of raising awareness about the values of sport and physical activity among Europeans.
More than 120 road races signed on to the EWoS website to be a part of the week itself or to promote the event during a promotion period running from 14 to 30 September. The most recent estimates are that as many as 300,000 runners will take part in the registered races.
Assistance with EWOS took place parallel to the promotion of European Athletics’ “Running for All”, which positions European Athletics and its Member Federations as active players in the running market.
Running for All features a system of safety and quality standards for road races developed with the assistance of leading running experts to help races promote themselves and integrate with the wider athletics movement.