NEWS 2007.

INTRODUCTION
 

For all those who don’t know, or those who have forgotten, ENGSO has a long history with the Council of Europe, and has gone quite a way from being an informal NGO Club created in April 1958 and then established in May 1966 with just several member countries – Denmark, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland. It was then and there that the first common statements in the Council of Europe were agreed upon.  

From that time when the first chairman was elected and Secretariat started functioning, so much has happened. 

Topics have not changed much since the NGO conference in 1967 in the Council of Europe with Willem van Zÿll, the Netherlands, acting as chairman, “Life long education and sports” and “Sports for All”. In 1968, it was decided that the still informal NGO Club should meet twice a year to discuss common sport political issues with reference to the Council of Europe development. More and more countries came to the NGO Club, and since 1970, the NGO Club met to discuss common position in advance of the Council of Europe meeting. 

In 1979 it was discussed whether this could become an international association of sport confederations, which was formed under the name of International Association of National Confederations of Sport, IANCS, in Amsterdam in November 1979. It was not a body for decisions, but for the transmission of the deliberations’ results 

It was in 1988, that the NGO Club decided to support the candidature of Mr Bengt Sevelius, Sweden, for the next presidency of the CDDS of the Council of Europe (rotation of GO/NGO Presidency). 

In 1990, upon a suggestion by Charles Palmer, UK, it was decided to change the name of the NGO Club to ENGSO - European Non-Governmental Sports Organisation. It was also decided that new members from East- and Central European countries can be accepted as members as soon as they can prove that they are non-governmental sports organisations. 

Mr. Bengt Sevelius, having finished his term as chairman of the CDDS of the Council of Europe in 1993, was elected member of the CDDS Bureau as representative of the NGOs. Later it was decided to install a permanent seat for a NGO representative since the tradition of rotation of chairmanship between GOs and NGOs had come to an end. 

It was with the new era in Europe that the organisation changed its name into ENGSO, becoming a formal organisation with a proper constitution in 1995.

In 1998, ENGSO decided to hold one one General Assembly a year (instead of two) and a FORUM in autumn. In 1999 ENGSO sharpened its profile as a pan-European umbrella organisation for the representation of the joint interest of non-governmental sports organisations in Europe and demanded inclusion of sport in the EU Treaties.

Today ENGSO is a true Pan-European organisation constituted by the national umbrella organisations for sports in Europe.

Members of ENGSO represent the national sport in its broadest sense – from children and youth sport over to “sport for all” – activities and up to elite sports. 

During the last period, ENGSO has been able to further strengthen its profile in Europe as a strong and competent partner of co-operation with other European bodies and as an advocate for the concerns and interests of our member organisations. 

Over the years, ENGSO has become a European sport umbrella organisation with 40 members and an observer, which promotes the unity of sport in the broadest sense, from grass roots to top level, and defends – at the European level -  the general interests of different target groups involved in sport,  such as children and young people, women, senior citizens, persons with a disability, etc. We have also reached appreciation and acknowledgement among our European partners as a reliable and competent organisation which not only acts as an advocate for the concerns and interests of our own members but is willing to co-operate in and contribute to opinion-building and decision-making processes which are developed to the benefit of sport in Europe. ENGSO has taken over a certain bridge-building function related to sport in the “old” and the “new” Europe, the EU countries and the other half of Europe, but also concerning a dynamic mutual co-operation between the young generation and senior experts in sport, as well as in terms of  promoting good partnership and co-operation between NGOs and GOs at all levels.  

It is the same concern for sport – not from ENGSO, but from its members, the national sports organisations with same worries and hopes as ever, that sport, sport activities and/or physical activities should be integrated in every form and aspect of European life formally as they are actually.