Motions to Extraordinary EHF Congress

At the request of the member federations and according to the EHF’s Statutes, an Extraordinary Congress will be held on Saturday, 14 November 2015 in Bucharest following the conclusion of the EHF Conference of Presidents.

The Extraordinary Congress will deal with five motions, which were first presented at the EHF Congress in Dublin in 2014, and which have since been considered by a Task Force on Democratic Representation.

The Task Force was chaired by Arne Elovsson and included representatives of the two nations that put forward the initial proposals, Austria and Norway, as well as representatives of the Nations Board and Women’s Handball Board and EHF Secretary General, Michael Wiederer.

The motions that will be dealt with are:

Motion 1: Age limit for elections

Tabled by the Austrian Handball Federation, the motion proposes to change the age limit for election to the EHF Executive Committee from the current limit of 68 years of age to 72.

Motion 2: Promoting gender equality in handball

Initially put forward by the Norwegian Handball Federation, this proposal deals with the promotion of gender equality within European handball and specifically with regard to increasing the involvement of women in the sport and in EHF functions.

The following changes are proposed in the form of a two-part motion:

- In case of a nomination of more than two persons for EHF functions by the National Federations, both genders shall be represented e.g. two females plus one male or two males and one female.

- In case an EHF body consists of more than four members, both genders shall be represented with a minimum of two persons; this is valid for the EHF Executive Committee, EHF Court of Handball and EHF Court of Appeal.

Motion 3: Rules for previous holders of top positions within the EHF

Put forward by the EHF, the motion proposes the introduction of an ‘ascending principle’ for EHF office holders i.e. after having served three terms of office in a top function within the EHF (president, vice president, treasurer and/or chair of a technical commission) a person may only take up a position that is of equal or higher rank within the organisation.

Motion 4: Multiple candidacies for positions within EHF bodies

The EHF has proposed that in the future, National Federations should be limited in the number of positions a candidate can be proposed for to a maximum of two functions rather than be nominated for multiple positions as is currently the case.

Motion 5: Universality of rules regarding overlapping positions

Based on the conclusions of the Democratic Representation Task Force, the proposal, initially tabled by the EHF, seeks to prevent any conflict of interests within the structure of the federation by disallowing the holding of multiple functions within the federation and EHF-owned entities, expect where necessary and provided for within the EHF Statutes.