The vision of ENGSO is to be the voice of sport in Europe. ENGSO exists to be a proactive front runner in the sports political field, a strong networking organization for sport in Europe, providing a platform for exchanging knowledge and information and a counterpart for European governmental institutions dealing directly or indirectly with sport like the EU or the Council of Europe. ENGSO is today the only European sports organisation having been granted consultative status by the Council of Europe. ENGSO contributed and contributes on various occasions to discussions of the EU on sport and sport-related issues. For instance ENGSO has been consulted by the European Commission while she was drafting the White Paper on Sport.
Sport is the largest voluntary non-governmental organisational activity throughout Europe with more volunteers and participants than any other activity. About 1/3 of the EU-population is organized in a sport club. About 60% of the EU-population practice sport on a regular basis. ENGSO represents this largest social movement at European level.
A study presented during the Austrian Presidency in 2006 suggested that sport in a broader sense generated value-added of 407 billion euros in 2004, accounting for 3.7% of EU GDP, and employment for 15 million people or 5.4% of the labour force. This contribution of sport should be made more visible and promoted in EU policies according to the EU-White Paper on Sport published on the 11 July 2007. ENGSO welcomed the White Paper and cooperates with the European Commission to implement the actions proposed in the Pierre de Coubertin Action Plan.

ENGSO organizes once a year its General Assembly and Forum. The General Assembly formally discusses and decides upon proposals which are forwarded by its working groups or issues which are raised by its members. The Forum has educational objectives and traditionally focuses on European topics such as “EU Matters”, “Sport and Employment” and “Sport as Health Promoter”, the “White Paper on Sport” and “EPAS – Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport”.

The main objectives of ENGSO are as follow:

• to promote and to defend the independence and autonomy of sports in Europe
• to meet the political and economical impact of EU on sport in Europe
• to assist in improving sports development – from children and youth sport, over “sport for all” activities to elite sports – in the member countries
• to take active part in development of the East-West and North-South co-operation and to bring peoples together;
• to raise the status and credibility of sports in the member countries, as well as actively combat the negative tendencies in sports
• to support voluntarism (active citizenship) as an important factor for development in society
• to develop democracy in sports
• to promote equality between men and women in sports
• to build bridges between different organisations dealing with “sport for all” activities.

ENGSO was founded in the 1960s and has been registered formally according to French law in 2006. It has its legal seat in the House of Sport in Paris.

Romana Caput-Jogunica participates in A2B.

Contact
Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français (CNOSF)
House of Olympic Sports
1, Avenue Pierre de Coubertin
75013 PARIS Cedex 13
France
Homepage: www.engso.eu