EPAS – Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport, a body of the Council of Europe (COE), held its annual meeting of the Governing Board and Consultative Committee in Strasbourg on May 14 and 15, 2025; providing an overview of activities and bringing changes in the elected representatives.

The meetings started with separate in-camera sessions of the Governing board and Consultative Committee, respectively, on May 14, bringing also changes in the governance. Within the Governing board, general elections were made for the next 2-year period. The new Governing Board Bureau is now composed of Solene Charuau (France) as Chair and Ioanna Paraskevopoulou (Cyprus) as Vice-Chair, with Antonio Parrilla (Italy), Simon De Coster (Belgium), Marija Jurcevic (Croatia) and Elnur Mammadov (Azerbaijan) elected as members, with Solene Charuau also in the position as Gender Equality Rapporteur. In Consultative Committee, elections were held for a vacant position to complete the current mandate, with Guido Battaglia (Centre for Sport and Human Rights) being elected as a member of the bureau.

The topics of discussion included the promotion of the European Sports Charter; the EPAS programme of activities, including past events as well as upcoming events, including the 18th Conference of Ministers Responsible for Sport, hosted by Portugal in Porto in October 2024, upcoming 2025 Diversity Conference and the 19th Conference of Ministers Responsible for Sport, to be hosted by Monaco in November 2026; the status of implementation of the 2024-2025 strategy and the draft strategy for 2026-2027; the draft guidelines on “safer recruitment in sport: human rights-compliant screening of professionals and volunteers in contact with children” as well as the work on the autonomy of sport and good governance, as a follow-up to the Resolution on "Collaborative governing and good governance in sport: supporting a fresh approach to match its societal importance".  

The joint plenary meeting was followed by the launch event of the joint European Union - Council of Europe project Sport For All: Promoting Inclusion and Combating Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities. The Sport For All project aims at addressing disproportional discrimination, exclusion, and limited access to sports due to social and systemic obstacles that people with physical, sensory, intellectual, and psychosocial disabilities face. The launch was opened by Gianluca Esposito, Director General of Human Rights and Rule of Law at the Council of Europe, Normunds Popens, Deputy Director-General of Directorate General Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission, Alexandre Husting, Chair of the EPAS Governing Board and Charlotte Girard-Fabre, Chair of the EPAS Consultative Committee. High-level athletes Arnaud Assoumani, Gizem Girismen and Yaroslav Denysenko shared their experiences and speakers debated the empowerment of sports organisations from grassroots to elite levels and best practice examples at international level.

The events in Strasbourg brought together, among others, representatives from 41 member states of the Council of Europe’s Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) and from 30 sports organisations, members of the Consultative Committee. Related to the theme of inclusion and diversity, participants also took part in a training session of blind football on the lawn of the Council of Europe.

European University Sports Association (EUSA) was represented by the EUSA Director of Projects and Policy Andrej Pisl, who currently also hold a mandate as a member of the EPAS Consultative Committee Bureau. At the event, together with European Athlete as Student (EAS) President Laura Capranica they also promoted the Discovering University Sport and Supporting Dual Career (DiscoverU) project, co-funded by the European Union. The main aim of the project is to improve sport and physical activity opportunities for students in higher education on one hand, addressing larger student population; and at the same time promote and support dual career in higher education in partnering countries (see https://discoveru.eusa.eu for details).

The Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) of the Council of Europe (COE) provides a platform for intergovernmental sports co-operation between the public authorities of its member states. It also encourages dialogue between public authorities, sports federations and non-governmental organisations, contributing to better governance, with the aim of making sport more ethical, more inclusive and safer. Special emphasis of EPAS is also the promotion of the revised European Sports Charter and its values. European University Sports Association (EUSA) has been a member of the EPAS Consultative Committee since 2018. For more information, please see www.coe.int/epas.