The Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sports, Gonzalo Santonja, participated in the Council of Ministers of Education, Youth, Culture and Sports of the European Union, held today in Brussels, under the presidency of Hungary. At this meeting, the ministers debated the characteristics of the European sports model, with the contribution of the 27 member states.
The proposal of Castilla y León, unanimously agreed upon with all the autonomous communities of Spain, proposes to include maternity support policies for high-level athletes. In his speech, the counselor highlighted that sport must be present in all public policies as a “powerful instrument to respond to the main challenges that Europe faces today, such as the feeling of belonging, the demographic challenge , gender equality, inclusion, migration, extremism, racism, hate speech or sustainability, among others… common challenges to which Spain is no stranger.”
In this sense, Santonja has defended that “in our country we are very aware of gender equality in sport. In particular, we believe in maternity support policies for high-level athletes to contribute to the demographic, social, economic and cultural challenge that we face in Europe.” For this reason, it has proposed the inclusion of policies to support maternity in high-level athletes in the next strategic document on the future of sports policy in the EU.
This proposal is added to the measures implemented by the Junta de Castilla y León in this matter, such as the Baby check, with aid of up to 20,000 euros to high-level athletes who have been mothers, for pregnancy, adoption or foster care, together with the modification of the aid granted by the Excellence Awards which, in the case of pregnant women, is based on the results obtained in the previous two years so that they do not lose their help when they return to competition. Also included in this strategy is a special assessment of the distribution of subsidies to all those sports entities that have sports-family conciliation plans, which help athletes in their family conciliation.
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