Announcements

The main sports policy priorities of next years were defined on May 23 by the EU Sports Ministers, in the meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sports committee (EYCS) of the Council. The three main priorities set for 2017-2020 are sports integrity, economic dimension of sport and sport and society, whereas the working structures foreseen include expert groups, conferences and seminars, as well as cluster meetings. 

The full text of the EU Work Plan for Sport 2017-2020 can be found here.

The French online gaming regulatory authority, ARJEL, and the Global Lottery Monitoring system (GLMS) have signed a partnership protocol, with the purpose of ensuring the sharing of information related to irregular sports betting patterns between the two organizations that both have in place a surveillance system on sports competitions.

Commercial communications for gambling products should continue to be excluded from the scope of the revised Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AMSD). That is the outcome of the vote in the European Parliament’s Culture and Education Committee. EL welcomes this clarification.

EL and WLA, upon invitation of the IOC President, Thomas Bach, participated on February 15 in the 2nd IOC International Forum for Sports Integrity (IFSI), organised in Lausanne. Lotteries joined a wide range of high-level stakeholders from the sports movement, governments, the Council of Europe, the EU and the UN, who flocked to Lausanne on this occasion and had the chance to discuss issues related to match-fixing and good governance in sport.

The Project ASPIRE (Activities, Sport & Play for the Integration of Refugees in Europe), led by the European Non-Governmental Organisation (ENGSO) and co-funded by the European Commission, through its ERASMUS+ programme, was inaugurated on 8-9 February in Brussels. Beyond the European Lotteries (EL), the project comprises a very strong network of partners, including the International Center of Sports Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE), the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Observatory on Sport and Employment (EOSE) and a good number of national sport partners.

The Executive Committee of the European Lotteries is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Arjan van’t Veer as the new Secretary General of the European Lotteries. He will start in his new role on 1 March 2017.