Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-19-Speech-4-010"
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"en.20021219.1.4-010"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I am glad that sport has been put on the agenda for today without, as is so often the case, having to be deferred until the evening. I see it as a good start that we are able, today, to discuss it during the day.
I am glad that 2004 will be so fully devoted to sport. The Olympic Games, the Paralympics, the European Cup in football, to name but a few, will draw the attention of millions of people, filling many of them with enthusiasm, disappointing others, but also prompting people to themselves get involved or step up their involvement. The European Year of Education through Sport can make use of this public interest in order to highlight the social value of sport. There is already evidence, provided by numerous studies, of sport's educational value, of its capacity for preventing ill-health and rehabilitating after illness, of the social skills that it imparts to young people and the elderly, and of much else that has already been mentioned.
So I welcome the fact that we will be producing no more new studies, but will be gathering new insights from practical experience of the Year of Sport's extension of activities such as the encouragement of cooperation between schools and sporting organisations. That is of great importance in bringing the two together and maximising the advantages to both in terms of the mobility of pupils, clubs and officials, and also supporting sport in performing its social functions and discharging its social obligations.
For me, however, it all keeps coming back to the importance of asking what we mean by fair play, which is inseparable from sport. I believe that racism, doping, and the treatment of sportswomen and sportsmen as commodities have left deep scars on the image of fair play. In the same way, we should be treating women in sport with a new respect, and doing something about their status in this area too. That is also underlined by our call for clubs to be involved in the Year of Education through Sport – something not called for in the first proposals. There are 600 000 sports clubs, with thousands of officials, and they make a very important and essential educational contribution that we can never dispense with.
Ladies and gentlemen, 2003, the Year of People with Disabilities, is almost upon us. I believe that here too we have to make use of this issue as an early preparation for 2004, asking even now how many opportunities disabled sportswomen and sportsmen have to integrate? What activities can the sports clubs – all 600 000 and more of them – offer these people? This is where there is a need for public awareness and also for financial support. All this underscores our demand for this to be incorporated into the Treaty."@en1
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