On the invitation of Mr Zrinko Custonja, President of the Croatian Academic Sports Federation (CASF), Mr Adam Roczek, EUSA President and Mr Matjaz Pecovnik, EUSA Secretary General visited Rijeka, Croatia from January 16-18, 2014.

The purpose of the visit was to participate on the Regional Ministerial Conference on the topics 'Development of the academic sports in the region' and to meet with the organisers of the European Universities Games 2016 to discuss the progress report on the project.

The conference started with welcome speeches of the academic, local, regional and state authorities, among them prof. dr. Pero Lucin, Rector of the University of Rijeka and Dr Sc Zeljko Jovanovic, Minister of Science, Education and Sport of the Republic of Croatia.

The official part began with presentation on the project of Regional Basketball League, presented by Mr Marko Zunic. Ms Ivana Anicic introduced the project of Regional Sports Volunteer Centre, Mr Gordan Kozulj the Regional Sports Conference and Mr Bosko Nektarijevic presented the possibilities for financing regional projects.


 

In his speech, Mr Roczek thanked for the invitation and stressed the importance of the university sports within the field of higher education, sports in general and also in relations to the general society. EUSA President also expressed his hope that the European Universities Games in 2016 will set new standards for this biggest university sport event in Europe.

Mr Haris Pavletic spoke about the potential for the regional development in conjunction of the European Universities Games to be organised in Zagreb - Rijeka in 2016 while Mr Nikola Vincetic presented the model of regional project implementation on the local level.

At the end of the conference Mr Pavletic presented the Charter on Regional Cooperation in the field of academic sport that was afterwards signed by Mr Vanja Udovicic, Minister of Youth and Sports of Serbia, Mr Zeljko Jovanovic, Minister of Science, Education and Sport of Croatia, Mr Jernej Pikalo, Minister for Education, Science and Sports of Slovenia and Mr Igor Vusurovic, Director of Youth and Sports Department of Montenegro.

On the second day of their stay, EUSA representatives met with Mr Zrinko Custonja, CASF President to discuss the progress report and action plan for the organisation of the Games. They also met Mr Ratko Kovacic, Vice President of the European Paralympic Committee (EPC) to discuss the cooperation between EUSA and EPC.