EOC President highlights importance of European sport model in meeting with European Commission Vice-President

EOC President Spyros Capralos met with the Vice-President of the European Commission Margaritis Schinas in Brussels, Belgium on 11 October 2021.

The focus of the meeting was the defence of the European Sport Model (ESM) and the shared values of tolerance, equality, respect and solidarity.

Capralos thanked both Schinas and Mariya Gabriel, the European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth for having supported the ESM on multiple occasions. He also took the opportunity to encourage them to consider the ESM as a cultural heritage of Europe.

”I was honoured to have the opportunity to meet with Vice-President Schinas and discuss topics that are relevant to our European community,” said Capralos. “The EOC is ready to further strengthen the cooperation with the European Union and we look forward to new projects that will benefit the youth and the sport sector across Europe.”

Other topics during the meeting included sustainability, climate change, the European Green Deal and how the EOC events can be used as tools to showcase and promote both Olympic and European Union values.

Finally, discussions were also had regarding the contribution that the European Olympic Movement can give to the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE), which was launched by the European Commission in April 2020. The aim of CoFoE is to provide European citizens with a platform for expression and to collect feedback on the way the EU should evolve and what its priorities should be.

The European Commission called on sports organisations to get involved in the consultation process, either by making proposals on the CoFoE’s multilingual digital platform, or by organising events to foster discussions on the future of European sports. The EOC encourages all European National Olympic Committees (ENOCs) to be active by supporting their activities within the CoFoE’s framework.

As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.

These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.