The Men’s 18 European Handball Championship in an event for players born 1994 or younger. It will be carried out in Austria between 12 and 22 July 2012 with the playing venues being Arena Rieden Vorkloster in Bregenz and Sporthalle am See in Hard.

Sixteen teams will battle for the title, and only one – hosting nation Austria – is already qualified. Fifteen teams will qualify for the final tournament through qualification that will be carried out between 30 March and 1 April 2012.

The qualification draw took place on 18 November 2011 in the Eventpyramide Vösendorf, south of Vienna (AUT) on the occasion of the Conference for Secretaries General, at the 20th anniversary of the European Handball Federation.

The draw gave us ten groups – eight groups of four teams and two groups of three teams. From the groups 1 to 5 the top two teams will qualify, in the groups 6 to 10 only the group winner will qualify.

Group 1

• Croatia
• Poland
• Georgia
• Romania

Group 2

• Spain
• Norway
• Israel
• Montenegro

Group 3

• Denmark
• Czech Republic
• Slovakia
• Greece

Group 4

• Germany
• Slovenia
• Luxemburg
• Latvia

Group 5

• France
• Russia
• Belarus
• FYR Macedonia

Group 6

• Sweden
• Ukraine
• Hungary
• Bulgaria

Group 7

• Iceland
• Turkey
• England
• Moldova

Group 8

• Switzerland
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Estonia

Group 9

• Portugal
• Finland
• Lithuania

Group 10

• Serbia
• Armenia
• Belgium

Organisation Rights

A separate draw determined the right to organise the qualification tournament to the teams in row 2. If the national federation does not take advantage of the right to organise the tournament in their home country, the right will be passed on to the teams in row 3, then row 1 and otherwise row 4.

Teams which were already awarded with the right to organise the 2010 Men’s 18 ECh qualification groups are automatically ranked to the last position.

This applies to Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden and the Ukraine. If more than one team per group are organisers from 2010 Men’s 18 ECh qualification they are all ranked behind those who were not, in the order of the organisation rights draw as stated above.