The EU Commission wants Europeans to #BeActive

Europeans are less and less engaged in physical activities and this negatively affects people’s health and well-being. According to Eurobarometer, 59% of Europeans never or rarely exercise or play sport.

In order to raise awareness about this critical lack of sport activities in Europeans’ life styles, the European Commission has launched an annual European Week of Sport in order to encourage everyone to be more physically active. The slogan of the initiative is “Be Active”.

The European Week of Sport takes place at EU, national, regional and local level. It is structured around four Focus Days with different themes: Education environment, Workplace, Outdoors, Sport Clubs and Fitness Centers.

On the EU Commission webpage it is possible to find a calendar of activities and events going on during the European Week of Sport. The official opening takes place this Saturday in Košice, Slovakia and is live streamed here.

Throughout the week there will be activities and events arranged including the FlashMove event during which thousands of Europeans across the continent join in the same dancing steps simultaneously.

The flagship event of this year's Week of Sport takes place in Brussels on 15 September and focuses on Good Governance in sport. Find more information about the conference here.

Aside from the many activities arranged, European Week of Sport’s webpage also comprises an extensive collection of infographics and materials related to the sport activities in different EU countries, advices on how to create a balanced physical activity schedule like Global recommendations on physical activity for health from the World Health Organizations (WHO) and many other useful materials.

This initiative was launched by the EU Commission last year and this year’s event is the second of its kind and runs from 10-18 September.