The new Commission’s room for improvement.

Exercise can help employees counteract health problems and mental stress in the workplace. Furthermore, sport contributes positively to the prevention of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, which are widespread in Europe. Together with the World Health Organisation's Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe), the European Commission has analysed the active lifestyle of Europeans. This year's Report on health-enhancing physical activity in the European Union (EU) shows that there have been significant improvements since the first analysis in 2015.

Analysis of the HEPA indicators

More than ten years ago, the Council's Recommendation on cross-sectoral support for health-enhancing physical activity (HEPA) was adopted. The aim of the recommendation is to promote an effective policy to support health-enhancing physical activity. To measure this, the WHO/Europe and the European Commission agreed on 23 indicators that will be used to evaluate the current physical activity behaviour across all sectors in the EU every three years. The focus is on the areas of health, education, sport and transport.

Thanks to various measures at national level, the enhancement of physical activity in the EU rose from 64.7 per cent in 2015 to 81.8 per cent in 2024. Contrary to this trend in Europe, a growing lack of physical activity has been observed globally since 2000. The WHO will therefore not be able to achieve its goal of enhancing physical activity in most countries. Germany is one of the European countries that have national guidelines or a programme to promote active commuting (HEPA indicator 18) as well as national guidelines or a programme to enhance physical activity in the workplace (HEPA indicator 19).

Plans of the new Commission

In order to take better account of mental health aspects, Glenn Micallef, the Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport, was tasked with updating the Council's recommendation on cross-sectoral support for health-enhancing physical activity. In his hearing, he reaffirmed his intention to realise this task. However, he did not specify what exactly he would like to focus on. It is therefore unclear whether the proposals from the report on health-enhancing physical activity in the EU (2024) will be included in the revision of the Council's recommendations.

Should the WHO achieve its global physical activity targets for 2030, Europe must also play its part. In addition to expanding national programmes as well as funding and promoting integrative concepts, it is important to strengthen the link between the areas of sport and health. Member States also need to improve their data collection and monitoring in order to track trends more accurately and make cross-country comparisons.