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(2004/C 65 E/270)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3000/03

by Geneviève Fraisse (GUE/NGL) to the Commission

(14 October 2003)

Subject:   Follow-up to the ‘women's sport’ resolution adopted by the European Parliament on 5 June 2003

On 15 September 2003, at the time of the Women's Football World Cup, it was announced that the American Women's Football Championship had been abolished. Despite clear progress, women's sport, across the board (schools, leisure and professional) needs to be supported.

In June 2003, the European Parliament, on my initiative, adopted a resolution dedicated to the issue of women and sport (P5-TA(2003)0269). The text's 46-odd proposals call on the European Union, the Member States and the sporting movement to put the issue of the effective equality of women and men in sport on their political agenda. The Commission has, thus far, done nothing to follow up this EP resolution.

The draft European constitution provides for a legal base for supportive action in the field of sport (Article 16), so as to promote the European dimension of sport, with particular regard to its social and educational role (Article III-182).

How does the Commissioner for sport, Mrs Viviane Reding, intend to follow up the EP resolution on women and sport? Will the Commission use the new legal framework for sport to make a favourable response to the demands set out in the resolution, and draw up the study of the situation of women in sport within Europe suggested by the Council of Sports Ministers meeting on 12 November 2001?

What initiatives are the Commission, and more particularly, its DG EAC going to take to promote women's sport and raise Member States' awareness of this policy issue (Community programmes and/or actions, Communication, White Paper, etc.)?

Could the European Union not seize the opportunity offered by the European location of the forthcoming 2004 Olympic Games to set out its vision of what sport is, by taking an active stance, as it did in the fight against doping, for equality between the sexes in sport, in terms of both access and practice?

Answer given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(30 October 2003)

The Commission is aware of the need to promote women's participation in sport and equal access for men and women to the sport of their choice. It realises that much remains to be done to ensure that women's sport achieves the position it deserves and therefore warmly welcomed the resolution on women in sport (1) adopted on the initiative of the Honourable Member.

However, the powers provided for in the EC Treaty do not allow the Commission to follow up the majority of the proposals in this resolution, most of which are addressed to the Member States and sports organisations. In terms of the future, the Honourable Member is correct in stating that sport is one of the areas where the draft constitution states that ‘the Union shall have competence to carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the action of the Member States, without thereby superseding their competence in these areas’ (2).

If the inclusion of sport in the EC Treaty were to be confirmed at the Intergovernmental Conference, the proposals to promote sport for women could then be used to prepare a Community measure in this area.

With regard to conducting a study, the Commission takes the view that a great deal of information on this subject is already available and that another study would be unlikely to add any new information. However, it plans to fund four sectoral studies on education and sport in 2003-2004, taking into account the aspects relating to women in sport. 2004 has been declared the ‘European Year of Education through Sport’, and one of its main aims is to promote sporting values. The issues raised by the Honourable member will be included among the objectives of the Year, and the projects organised over the Year will contribute to promoting the educational aspect of sport.

Most of the issues raised by the Honourable Member will therefore be tackled in the context of the European Year and these four studies.

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(1)  P5_TA(2003)0269.

(2)  CONV 850/03 of 18.7.2003.

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