We are enjoying a wonderful season of sport, with the Euros in France and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio. And as these events have hopefully inspired many people to get moving, it is certainly a good time to kick off the second European Week of Sport on 10 September.
Because this is exactly what this Europe-wide event is designed to do: motivate people to take up sport - and to keep it up throughout the year.
Sport is not just for the professionals. It is for everyone, no matter your age, background or fitness level. Sport is fun. It helps us feel good about ourselves, keep fit and improve our health and wellbeing.
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More broadly, sport brings people together. It helps us to meet people from different backgrounds and make new friends. And it enables us to build communities of people sharing the same passion, contributing to efforts to prevent social exclusion and marginalisation.
This is critical at a time when our society is confronting many challenges: maintaining our economic competitiveness, integrating refugees and migrants and tackling violent radicalisation. We need to use all our resources wisely to overcome these complex problems. Sport, and more specifically grassroots sport, has a vital role to play here.
That is why I want to promote participation in sport, in particular for young people. Showing children from an early age that sport is enjoyable is the foundation for an active, healthy lifestyle throughout adulthood.
The first European Week of Sport showed very clearly that people, and especially young people, are interested in physical activity. We just need to open up possibilities for them. Our aim is to show people how easily they can make sport and physical activity part of their daily lives.
I firmly believe that grassroots sport is, and should remain, a priority in EU cooperation on sport. Not only because of its obvious benefits, but also because it helps us tackle the financial and economic consequences of inactivity - which costs our economies more than €80bn each year through lost working hours and higher spending on public health.
This is why, last year, I invited a group of experts to evaluate the role of grassroots sport in European society and to come up with ideas on how we can better support it.
I was pleased to receive their recommendations in June on how grassroots sport can make a contribution in the areas of health, social inclusion, learning and skills development, volunteering, sustainable financing, urban planning and infrastructures. These recommendations will be very valuable as we take our work forward.
In 2017 we will have to decide on the next EU work plan for sport, and the European Parliament will be an important partner for me in defining the priorities. The new report on sport by MEP Hannu Takkula gives Parliament an excellent opportunity to express its views on sport. I am looking forward to hearing them.
The European Week of Sport is one way of supporting grassroots sport. We also use the Erasmus+ programme to finance activities in this field. With a seven year budget of €265m, Erasmus+ promotes grassroots sport in particular and is funding projects promoting social inclusion, equal opportunities and participation in sport.
We will launch the second European Week of Sport on 10 September in Košice, Slovakia - which is this year's European City of Sport. Our flagship event focusing on good governance will take place in Brussels on 15 September.
But the European Week of Sport, based on an initiative of the European Parliament, is a truly European event with thousands of activities taking place in the 31 countries participating in the #BeActive campaign.
We are working with national coordinators and a network of 35 partner organisations to organise activities at regional and local level. A team of ambassadors is also helping us raise awareness of the benefits sport brings to our lives.
Opportunities for people to discover different types of physical activity and to become active are on offer in schools, workplaces, outdoors, in sports clubs and fitness centres.
You can run a half-marathon in Belgium, participate in a big cycling event in Ireland or simply take the stairs instead of the lift wherever you are.
Last year, more than five million Europeans took part in sport events across Europe during the week. I am confident we will see even more people get active this year.
Promoting sport and physical activity in the long-term is an important goal for the European Union. More than ever, we need to fully tap sport's potential to build bridges and bring people together. And the European Week of Sport has a big role to play in this. See you there.