EuropeActive

The EU Platform for Diet, Physical Activity and Health is facing a challenging time with several public health NGOs having decided to leave the European Commission-led activity. The platform was established in 2005 and EuropeActive is presenting the Physical Activity sector as an observer since 2006.

The Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety set up the platform to help EU governments via voluntary schemes to improve physical activity inequalities and healthy nutrition to tackle rising obesity rates and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across the bloc.

On Wednesday July 10^th, the Finnish Presidency has invited key stakeholders of the European Sport and physical activity sector to present their priorities for the coming 6 months. Next to combatting corruption and safeguarding children in sport, the coordination of the EU’s position on anti-doping in the light of the WADA’s 5^th world conference will be a central topic.

After 6 years of work by many experts from 10 different standards bodies, EN 17229:2019 Fitness centres -Requirements for centre amenities and operation- Operational and managerial requirements has now been published. The experts involved in the development set the criteria for fitness centres across Europe by specifying the minimum requirements for the provision of physical activity in fitness centres. This includes the operational and managerial procedures for offering and delivering the service together with requirements for selection and positioning of equipment as well as any associated facilities, if present.

New research reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2019 in Los Angeles suggests that healthy lifestyle choices, especially physical activity, may decrease the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. David Llewellyn, researcher of the University of Exeter said that healthy lifestyle appears to be “the only tool to wind back the risk of dementia conferred by a bad deal from the genetic lottery”.

With the recent approval of the French Ministry of Sport a new Professional Qualification Certificate (CQP) for Fitness Instructor has been developed that will open new opportunities for the training and qualification of fitness professionals. The design of the CQP is based on EuropeActive standards and has been proposed by a consortium including France Active, Planet Fitness and the sport employers’ organisation COSMOS. The CQP can be considered to be a sector-led initiative that should become an alternative to the current brevet d’état system.

Representatives of the Sector Skills Alliance gathered in Brussels on Thursday 27th June 2019 to focus on the evolution and future trends of the European Active Leisure sector. The meeting was attended by representative employer and employee associations form the European Fitness and Outdoor Sector and representatives from DG EMPL, DG EAC and EACEA from the European Commission. The meeting was opened by chairperson Dr. Anna Szumilewicz from Gdansk University, followed by presentations from EuropeActive’s Director of Programmes Cliff Collins and EU Policy Officer Elisabeth Thienemann.

The Blueprint project has reached its mid-term with most activities successfully completed. To sign off some key outputs and plan the remaining 18 months of the project, the Blueprint consortium gathered 28 June 2019 in Brussels. Hence, the project partners joined the Sector Skills Alliance for Active Leisure meeting the previous day which was well attended by representatives from employer and employee organisations and the European Commission. The Sector Skills Alliance provides a platform for validating results, focus groups and effective result dissemination.

EuropeActive’s director of programmes Cliff Collins and policy officer Elisabeth Thienemann met with the Director of the Ecole Nationale de l’Education Physique et des Sports (ENEPS), Charles Stelmes and his team 2 July 2019. ENEPS advises the Ministry of Sport of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and is responsible for introducing Sport and Active Leisure Qualifications on the LuxQF, the Luxembourgish National Qualifications Framework. It has been a very fruitful meeting to identify synergies of ENEPS and EuropeActive’s work in relation to standards setting and qualification development.

EuropeActive attended on Friday, 21^st June 2019 the ‘Active Cities, Active Workplaces’ Workshop in the Committee of the Regions (CoR) hosted by Sport & Citizenship’s PACTE Project and the European Meetings of Company Sport (EMoCS). The event’s main goal was to target and find solutions to be more active at work by discussing with city leaders, experts and Sport representatives the best initiatives and topics for active companies.

The workshop started in a plenary session where Hicham Imane (CoR), Musa Lami (EMoCS) and Maxime Leblanc (Sport & Citizenship) shared their own testimonials on the current activities developed to get more active cities and workplaces.

On Wednesday June 19^th, the European Commission invited key stakeholders to Brussels for a seminar on the Tartu Call for healthy lifestyles. The Tartu Call, signed in 2017, is a cross-sectoral European Commission initiative, containing 15 concrete actions on how to promote healthy lifestyles. The European Commissioner for Sport, Tibor Navracsics, for health, Vytenis Andriukaitis and for agriculture, Phil Hogan, have organised this seminar to take stock of the progress that has been made in the last 2 years and to look at the road ahead.