Flemish Sports Minister Philippe Muyters has brought together the sports sector and EU institutions for the first time under the new Sport Council. The informal meeting had participants discuss future EU policy in the field of sports. For the Belgian EU Presidency, Muyters is chair of the newly created Sport Council. He was also instrumental in having the European Council formally add, on 16 September, the word ‘sport’ to the Education, Youth and Culture Council.

Under the Lisbon Treaty’s Article 165, the EU now has a supporting, coordinating and supplementing competence for sport. Muyters has thus been pushing hard for the Council to listen carefully to sector stakeholders. “After all, they know best what is happening in the field,” said Muyters. The Flemish minister notes that the Sport Council, on 18 November, called for reinforced dialogue with stakeholders. “We need to cooperate so as to bring sport a step further in the EU and to seize this new opportunity for the benefit of EU citizens.”

Topics discussed included the results of the first ever Sport Council, the future of EU dialogue on sports, the EU’s new sport competence, financing, social inclusion, volunteering and integrity in sport. Stakeholders are also eager to find out how the Commission intends to use its new powers in the field.

Also present at the meeting was Androulla Vassiliou. The sports commissioner should set out, on 13 January 2011, the EU executive’s plans over the next few years for implementing the new powers offered by the Lisbon Treaty in the field of sport. Centrepiece in Vassiliou’s communication will be a plan identifying targeted actions where the Commission believes the EU can provide “high added value” (see Europolitics4078).