Meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council of the European Union
On 25 November 2014 in Brussels a meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council of the European Union was held. The main point of the meeting was the adoption of the Council conclusions on sport as a driver for innovation and economic growth. Poland was represented by Mr. Bogusław Ulijasz, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Sport and Tourism.
The Conclusions are a non-binding document describing the issue in question and encouraging the various stakeholders to take action. The adopted document highlights the positive impact of the sports sector on the EU economy and the resistance of sport to the effects of the economic crisis.
It also concludes that sport, in connection with considerable financial expenditure and inherent competition, generates a lot of innovation. These new technologies penetrate into other sectors of the economy, e.g. the automotive, health care, food industry and IT sectors.
Given the above, the Conclusions emphasise that sport may contribute to overcoming the current economic problems. Tools that may turn out helpful in this area include clusters, protection of intellectual property rights in sport, better examination of the relationship between sport and other sectors of the economy, and improved access to international markets for the sports sector.
In the meeting, the ministers also discussed the issue of physical activity of children and youth at school age. Statistics show that almost everywhere in the European Union there is a decline in physical activity of persons in this age category. This is mostly due to their preference to spend time at a computer, to the lack of attractive physical education offer at schools, and poor availability of sports infrastructure.
Initiatives have been suggested to encourage the physical activity of children and youth e.g. by developing cooperation between schools and sports associations, increasing the number of physical education classes at schools, and improving their attractiveness.
Minister Ulijasz referred to Polish ideas and experience in the field of encouraging children and youth to take up physical activity. The Polish representative emphasised, in this context, the need for good cooperation with the various stakeholders.
In the last part of the meeting, the representative of Latvia presented the priorities of the incoming Latvian presidency in the field of sport for the first half of 2015.