Professional Documents
Culture Documents
26 DE SETEMBRO DE 2007
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Comissão baptizar o seu Programa de Acção precisamente com o nome do
Barão fundador dos Jogos Olímpicos da Era Moderna.
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Cumprida a primeira parte da nossa intervenção, centramo-nos já,
sem delongas, nos efeitos que o Livro Branco pode vir a ter na definição das
políticas desportivas dos 27 Estados-membros da UE.
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E assim continuará a ser no futuro, mesmo num cenário em que o
desporto venha enfim a figurar expressamente no direito primário da UE.
De facto, constata-se quer no mandato do Conselho para a Conferência
Intergovernamental em curso, quer no Anteprojecto do Tratado Reformador,
que a UE, no domínio do desporto, só poderá vir a ter competências de
suporte, coordenação e complemento às acções dos Estados-membros.
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Aqui chegados, cumpre agora iniciarmos a última parte da nossa
intervenção, incidindo sobre os efeitos do Livro Branco no quotidiano do
Associativismo Desportivo.
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Parece assim, que doravante, toda e qualquer regra que uma
organização desportiva venha a adoptar poderá ser sujeita a uma análise da
sua compatibilidade com o Direito Comunitário.
Concluindo:
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palavras aos actos, ou seja, que aquilo que todos sempre reclamaram existir
– a chamada ―especificidade do desporto‖ – tivesse consequência prática.
Mas o caminho foi outro, o de contrariar o acervo comunitário, sujeitando
ao Direito Comunitário mesmo as regras e actividades não económicas, e de
não lançar mão de mecanismos que o Direito Comunitário consagra para, em
certos casos, não se aplicar, considerar-se compatível ou isentar-se um
determinado acordo ou prática.
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SEMINÁRIO INTERNACIONAL
―DESENVOLVIMENTO NO DIREITO E NAS POLÍTICAS
DESPORTIVAS DA UNIÃO EUROPEIA‖
26 DE SETEMBRO DE 2007
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As regards the Olympism, special attention should be drawn to the
fact that the White Paper begins with a quote by Baron Pierre de
Coubertin and that the Commission has named its Action Plan after him,
the founder of the Olympic Games of the modern age.
Indirectly, there are clearly other topics in the White Paper related to
the Olympism which we would like to both identify and welcome here.
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Having fulfilled the first part of our intervention, let us now focus
without delay on the effects that the White Paper may have in defining the
sports policies of the 27 EU Member States.
This ambition has sparked vehement reactions in those who fear and
reject an excessive desire on the part of the Commission to interfere in an
area of competence reserved for Member States and thus define a common
strategy at the European level.
In that regard, given that the Treaty does not assign any direct
power to the European Community in the area of sport, Community bodies
may never adopt acts in this domain which are binding on Member States.
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in the Council mandate for the Intergovernmental Conference currently
underway as well as in the preliminary draft of the Reform Treaty that
sport shall only be able to receive powers to support, co-ordinate and
supplement the actions of Member States.
It also seems to us that Member States would benefit from the set of
actions that the Commission proposes to undertake by including sport
within the Treaty’s various sectoral policies and thus providing it with
financial support. This route is even more commendable as direct
Community financial aid for sport has been withheld since 1998, as the
result of a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Communities,
which clearly stated the need for a legal basis in the Treaty in order to have
a corresponding budget appropriation.
At this point, it now falls upon us to begin the final part of our
intervention, which determines the effects of the White Paper on the day-
to-day activities of sports associations.
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In this regard and in carefully measured words, we feel that there is
indeed cause for alarm.
Instead, with one stroke of the pen and going against three decades
of constant and coherent jurisprudence, the Commission chose to consider
even "purely sporting rules‖ as being subject to scrutiny by Community law.
It is also unfortunate that it did not clarify the extent to which the
social, educational, cultural, recreational and public health functions of
sport can justify Community law's inability to be unquestioningly applied
to this area.
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which the Court of Justice of the European Communities ruled on the
legality of an anti-doping regulation adopted by the IOC. Fortunately, the
Court considered the limit set in the regulation under judgment to be
proportional with regard to the presence of a doping substance in an
athlete’s body.
The truth is this: despite its emphasis on the growing litigation that
exists today in sport, the Commission is opening doors that may enable us to
witness cases in Brussels and Luxembourg whereby, for example, the
compatibility of Community law shall be assessed for a rule that reduces the
number of participating teams in a football league; for a regulation that
establishes the length of a rugby pitch; for a disciplinary sanction that
awards the guilty party a red card with a five-game ban; for a rule that sets
a limit on players per team.
To conclude:
What was requested was not that an exception be made for sport,
nor that it be automatically exempted from Community law. It was only
asked that words be transformed into actions, or rather, that which
everyone has always claimed to exist—the so-called ―specific nature of
sport‖—have a practical consequence. But another path has been taken:
one that goes against the Community acquis, subjecting even non-economic
rules and activities to Community law; one that does not make use of the
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mechanisms provided by Community law to determine, in certain cases,
whether a given agreement or practice can be applied, compatible or exempt.
But all is not lost. And once the ―specific nature of sport‖ is
incorporated in the Reform Treaty, a document that is indeed legally
binding, we can expect the Court of Justice of the European Communities
to return to the vision that it expressed in 2000 in the Deliège judgment: a
modality’s regulatory and rulemaking mission should fall to the sports
federations, ―which normally have the necessary knowledge and
experience‖.
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