Wednesday 17th March 2021
During the launch of the European Social Charter for Sport Events project on January 18th 2021, the french minister for sports, Mrs Roxana Maracineanu, declared her support to our project in a warm opening speech.
The minister insisted on the importance of good governance, social impact and legacy of sport events. She then recognized the role of social engagement, job creation and inclusion of sport events which is at the heart of the ESCSE project as well as the importance to act at European level about these issues.
In conclusion of the speech that you can find below, the minister encouraged all the stakeholders involved in this project and stated her will to see it succeed and to push this project forward.
« Mister President, Dear Philippe,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me to thank you for this invitation; for the opportunity that you are giving me to be with you this morning.
Also, allow me to tell you how pleased I am to open your proceedings. Because the subject you touch upon and your thoughts around it bring us to the heart of the action on a theme that often remains simply conceptual: good governance of sport and its progress.
I am delighted, but most of all I am proud. Moreover, you too, should be proud of your allegiance to the areas of social impact and legacy.
While for a long time these were considered a mere gadget, I guess now we as a society are finally recognizing the leading role that sporting events can play to foster inclusion, job creation and social engagement.
Fighting job insecurity, illegal work, discrimination that dare not speak its name, is a responsibility that the sports ecosystem cannot simply brush aside with a wave of the hand.
Too often, in recent decades, the organization of sporting events has been accompanied by unacceptable realities that have conveyed the opposite of what we believe in sport: a diffuser of energies and positive values, an accelerator of progress.
This subject is global and crosses borders. Acting at European level, coordinating at continental level, is essential. Developing European cooperation is the most effective way to achieve shared measures based on common concerns and values.
For that, I look forward to seeing you working on this European Social Charter for Sport Events.
I am delighted that this project — supported by Paris 2024 and which will be presented to you shortly — will serve as a cornerstone for your discussions.
I am certainly delighted because we have succeeded together in making an essential and innovative project part of European political objectives.
And I am most delighted because you are living proof that sporting events do not live outside of reality.
On the contrary, this European Social Charter for Sport Events is a testament to the anchoring of sport in social realities. It shows that social commitments are at the heart of the organization of major events, and that they can even contribute to dialogue and progress.
And even more than a testament, it is the starting point, the creation of a major tool that every stakeholder will have the opportunity to use in the near future.
To conclude it — and I hope you have noticed it! — I want to stress how much I believe in your project. It is auspicious that the first results of the experiment you are conducting will be shared at the start of 2022. In that year, France will chair the Council of the European Union, and I already want to book an appointment with you for what, I have no doubt, will be a success story.
Thank you very much and happy New Year 2021. »
