At some of the European Olympic Committee meetings, the representatives of the small states suggested the idea of organising, between them, multidisciplinary sporting games. European countries with a population of less than one million inhabitants may participate, if they have an autonomous Olympic committee and are members of the International Olympic Committee.
The idea of these games took shape at the Olympic Congress in Baden-Baden in 1981, at which the Olympic committees of the eight small states met for the first time to exchange impressions and work out ways to organise games especially designed for the size of their states.
The decision was taken during the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984 and the statutes and technical regulations were drawn up. These Games are held - with little exceptions - in accordance with the rules and regulations of the international federations and the Olympic Charter and are supported by the European Olympic Committee.
The GSSE take place every two years either end of May or beginning of June.
On 1st June 2009, the Executive Committee of the GSSE decided to include Montenegro as ninth member country. 2015, all eight founding members will have organized the Games twice. Hence on 30 May 2011, in a meeting of the Executive Committee together with the Sports Minister of the participating countries it has unanimously been decided to start a third circle.
Technical Regulations for the sport program
The Technical Regulation of the GSSE says that the “program of the Games must necessarily include six fixed individual sports (athletics, swimming, judo, shooting, tennis and table tennis) and two team sports (with obligation of basket ball and/or volley ball) men and women.” The Organizing Committee may add a maximum of two other Sports, one of them must be an Olympic Sport and the Executive Committee has to approve it.
The program will finally be settled by the Executive committee four years before the Games.
The Technical Regulations of the GSSE also says, how many athletes in each discipline per nation may start.
When and where they have taken place until now:
1985 San Marino
1987 Monaco
1989 Cyprus
1991 Andorra
1993 Malta
1995 Luxembourg
1997 Iceland
1999 Liechtenstein
2001 San Marino
2003 Malta
2005 Andorra
2007 Monaco
2009 Cyprus
2011 Liechtenstein
2013 Luxembourg
The next two host countries are:
2015 Iceland
2017 San Marino
Number of Athletes:
