On 7 March, the Ministry of Youth and Sport of Ukraine together with the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine organised an online webinar “Supporting Ukrainian Sport” to which the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and the European Commission contributed. More than 100 European and Ukrainian organisations participated. The main objective of this virtual meeting was to help Ukrainian organisations to get closer to EU partners so that they can find opportunities for cooperation and possibly apply for new calls together.

Svitlana Shytikova, representative of the National Erasmus+ Office in Ukraine and Andriy Chesnokov, Deputy Ukrainian Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine for European Integration presented the current needs of their country and their willingness to strengthen the integration of Ukrainian organisations into the new Erasmus+ cooperation partnerships. The Ukrainian representatives stressed the importance of finding new support and cooperation as it will help prepare Ukraine's future.

As a third country not associated to the Erasmus + Programme, Ukrainian organisations can only take part in projects under the sub-action "cooperation partnerships in the field of Sport" under Key Action 2 of the Erasmus + Programme. Nevertheless, Yves Le Lostecque (Head of Unit Erasmus Mundus and Sport at EACEA) pointed out that it represents two thirds of the budget, i.e. 38.6 million euros for 2023 (out of 59 million euros) and that as such, most funding opportunities were reachable to Ukrainian organisations.

He concluded by considering the cooperation with Ukrainian sport organisations as a priority.

A contact file of participants is already available, and the webinar recording should be available soon.