On 27 June, the EOC EU Office organised its Annual Partner Meeting gathering representatives of its partner organisations. This year, 17 partner organisations attended the meeting including representatives of FIBA Europe and the British Olympic Association, two organisations which have joined the EOC EU Office in the first half of 2016.

The meeting was divided in two parts: an update on different EU policy fields impacting sport and a more interactive part on Erasmus+ Sport and the EU Work Plan for Sport.

After an introduction of Folker Hellmund, Head of the EOC EU Office, and an update on the different services offered by the office to the partners – namely the intranet platform and the weekly update – Jean-Michel Saive, Chair of the EOC Athletes’ Commission, gave an overview of his activities since his nomination as European Olympic athletes’ representative to the EU. He notably referred to the EU Seminar for EOC athletes with the objective to discuss the challenges facing by athletes representation at the EU level, which was organised in April.

Then, the attending partners had the opportunity to share their recent activities and projects at the European level. The potential consequences for sport of the Brexit referendum have notably been discussed while several partners mentioned their respective involvement as lead applicant or project partner in the Erasmus+ Sport call 2016. 
Furthermore, an update on several policy fields – including the Digital Single Market, the Firearms Directive and the Data Protection reform – has been given by the staff of the EOC EU Office. In addition, recent activities of the EU in the field of Good Governance and Major Sport Events as well as the reports of the two High Level Groups have been presented. Finally, the recent activities of the SIGGS Project were also presented.

The second part of the meeting included an exchange of views on the Erasmus+ Sport Programme and the new EU Work Plan for Sport. 
Regarding Erasmus+ Sport, the EOC EU Office presented its background paper assessing the call 2015 and making recommendations for the future of the Programme before exchanging views and experiences with the partners.

The final point on the agenda was the discussion on the new EU Work Plan for Sport which should be adopted in the first half of 2017. In that perspective, the European Commission is currently consulting stakeholders from the field of sport with the objective to prepare an assessment report by November. Participants discussed the working structures and the list of priorities that should be part of the new work plan

The EOC EU Office thanks all its partner organisations for their participation and contributions during the meeting