WOSM-European Region: Difference between revisions

The '''European Scout Region''' is the divisional office of the World Scout Bureau of the [[World Organization of the Scout Movement]], headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with two regional offices, in Brussels, Belgium, which focuses more on external relations and partnerships; and in Belgrade, Serbia, to support the national Scout associations in Southeast Europe. The European Scout Region comprises 40 National Scout Organizations that are members of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, and services [[Scouting]] in Western Europe and Central Europe, excluding the former Soviet Republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine, but inclusive of Cyprus, though technically not part of Europe, for cultural reasons, and Israel for political ones.

Full members status is held to the [[European Youth Forum]] ([[YFJ]]) which operates within the [[Council of Europe]] and European Union areas and works closely with both these bodies.

All the formerly communist states of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union have developed or are developing Scouting in the wake of the renaissance in the region. These include Albania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the successor states to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Baltic countries independent of the former Soviet Union. Of these, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary have been most successful in regrowing their Scout movements and are very well-developed, thanks in part to the existence of [[Scouts-in-Exile]] movements for the diaspora of each nation.

Andorra is one of only six of the world's independent countries that do not have Scouting. The population is sufficiently large to sustain Scouting, but the Scout association of the tiny enclave in the Pyrenees has been dormant since the [[1980s]] and at present there is no Scouting movement. Likely it was spearheaded by a single dedicated local volunteer no longer involved, or at most a few who lost impetus.