The Council of Europe's member states representatives, forming the Governing Board of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS), accompanied by the Consultative Committee, held their annual meeting; this year's edition was the 15th, and was held virtually between June 14 and 16, 2021. The European University Sports Association (EUSA), being a member of the EPAS Consultative Committee, was represented at the event as well.

On the first day, the EPAS Consultative Committee met online, discussed work and annual activities for the past year, and introducing the outlines of the annual conference on diversity, which will this year be focused on LGBT people in sport.

The main EPAS Governing board meeting was held on the second and third day, starting with in-camera session by the member states, and then continuing with the joint meeting sessions of the Governing Board and the Consultative Committee. The meeting was chaired by Mr Alexandre Husting (LUX), supported by EPAS Secretary General Mr Stanislas Frossard and the Secretariat.



The new Bureau was elected, confirming Mr Husting as the Chair for another 2-year mandate. Internally, also the IPACS benchmarks on good governance were discussed.

In the plenary joint part, the discussion on the European Sports Charter was the focus of the meeting of the first day. After the presentations and discussions, the draft has been approved, to be adopted by the next Ministerial conference. Closed leagues and competitions were also discussed, presented by Mr Bjorn Berge, COE Deputy Secretary General, reflecting this year's attempt of launching a commercial closed football league.



Wednesday's sessions started with the discussion on the impact of COVID on sport, with introduction by Mr Aaron Herman (COE) and Mr Tone Jagodic (EOC), before discussing the programme of activities for 2022 and the 17th Conference of ministers responsible for sport in 2022, to be held in Turkey.

The participants also focused on one of the core EPAS topics on Child Safeguarding in Sport, with the presentation of the Start to Talk initiative, and the Child Safeguarding in Sport (CSiS) project.



The Forum on Human Rights and Sport, held online in the beginning of June was presented next, with the conclusions and follow-ups, followed with the debate on the cooperation with the European Union, especially on orientation of future projects.

EUSA Communications & Projects Manager Mr Andrej Pisl represented the organisation, attending the online meetings.

For more information, please visit https://www.coe.int/en/web/sport/epas/.