Mr President, since this is the first opportunity I have had to speak since your election, I should like to wish you the greatest happiness in your Presidency of the European Parliament. I should also like to congratulate Mr Oostlander on the quality of this report, into which he has put a great deal of hard work, and to which the Group of the European People’s Party gives its unreserved support. The issue of drugs is a central concern of Europe’s citizens. For years, the European Parliament has demonstrated its commitment to the fight against drugs. And today, the European dimension of this fight is clear to see in actions that range from the adoption of legal instruments to combat the manufacture of drugs, the trafficking of drugs and money-laundering to cooperation with producer countries and promoting the prevention of drug addiction and the fight against it, involving treatment, rehabilitation and even the development of information and coordination networks between Member States. We should bear in mind that, since the end of the ‘cold war’, there has been an unprecedented increase in drug trafficking as a source of funding for the activities of criminal and terrorist organisations. It is currently estimated that drug-related crime and drug trafficking itself could represent approximately eight per cent of world trade. Putting an end to this trafficking would, therefore, mean shutting down the largest sources of funding for these criminal and terrorist organisations. This proposal for a framework decision, however, as Mr Oostlander quite rightly pointed out, proposes nothing new and nor does it strengthen the mechanisms for combating international drug trafficking. The proposal is a necessary step, and we know that it is intended to respond to the needs identified both in the Vienna action plan and in the Tampere conclusions, as well as in the European Union 2000-2004 Drugs Strategy. This is, indeed, a necessary step, but an inadequate one: it is limited to establishing the lowest common denominator of the national provisions in force in each Member State for offences in the field of drug trafficking. Consequently the Member States must adopt the necessary measures to ensure that these offences are punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties, including custodial sentences with a maximum term of imprisonment of no less than five years in serious cases. Now, in my opinion, this is a very low limit, especially given that the legislation in force in the Member States already imposes heavy penalties for drug trafficking, in particular when the scale and the seriousness of the case can be considered to be aggravating circumstances. For example, in my country, Portugal, this limit is twelve years, and can be increased by one-third. Lastly, I wish to mention an aspect which is of the greatest importance, and that is the confiscation of all illicit proceeds acquired directly or indirectly from the crime of trafficking or from being a member of a criminal organisation or of a plot to traffic drugs. I feel that this will satisfy the wishes of many of the organisations that have made a remarkable effort in the fight against drugs, that some of the proceeds obtained through the confiscation of these goods can be put to use in the policy of prevention.

Political group: PPE-DE