A4-0294/98

Resolution on the 1997 annual report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction on the state of the drugs problem in the European Union (C4-0552/97)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the 1997 Annual Report of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (C4-0552/97),

- having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 302/93 of 8 February 1993 on the establishment of a European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction ((OJ L 36, 12.2.1993, p. 1.)),

- having regard to the three-year work programme (1998-2000) of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction,

- having regard its resolution of 15 June 1995 ((OJ C 166, 3.7.1995, p. 116.)) on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a European Union action plan to combat drugs (1995 to 1999),

- following delegation of the power of decision to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs pursuant to Rule 52 of the Rules of Procedure,

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and the opinions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection (A4-0294/98),

A. whereas the task of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) is to provide the Community and its Member States with objective and reliable information, comparable at European level, concerning drugs and drug addiction and their consequences, to improve the comparability of that information and to disseminate it in order to provide the Community and its Member States with an overall view of the problem when they take measures or decide on action,

B. whereas the Regulation on the establishment of a European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction lays down five priority areas for action by the EMCDDA, i.e. demand and reduction of the demand for drugs, national and Community strategies and policies, international cooperation and geopolitics of supply, control of trade in narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors and the implications of the drugs phenomenon for producer, consumer and transit countries,

C. whereas, under the terms of the annex to the abovementioned Regulation (EEC) No 302/93, during its first three years of activity the EMCDDA was required to give priority to demand and reduction of the demand for drugs, and whereas that period ended in 1997; whereas the EMCDDA has been asked to broaden the scope of its responsibilities, for instance in assisting in the fight against money laundering,

D. whereas, following three years' work by the EMCDDA in this area, data collected at national level by the Reitox focal points and collated at European level by the Monitoring Centre on demand and reduction of the demand for drugs in the European Union is still nowhere near comparable, since basic definitions have not been standardized and data is not collected on the basis of uniform criteria,

E. whereas, if they are to take measures and decide on action, both the Member States and the institutions of the European Union urgently require not only comparable information, but also assessments of the effectiveness of differing national drugs policies and must recognize that the Reitox centres are indispensable for this purpose,

F. whereas the process of laying down research priorities, harmonising definitions and collection methods and analysing data must involve the EMCDDA and, above all, the Member States, which should work together both on the Management Board and in the context of the Reitox network,

G. whereas the 1997 annual report, which relates to data for 1996 and deals with demand and reduction of the demand for drugs and anti-drug strategies, is a clear improvement over the previous report and contains a variety of interesting information, but does not as yet constitute an adequate basis for assessing the demand for drugs in the European Union and the effectiveness of national policies,

H. whereas the EC budget resources allocated to the EMCDDA totalled ECU 5.84 m for the 1996 financial year and ECU 6.3 m for the 1997 financial year,

I. whereas Parliament has two representatives, the Commission two representatives and each Member State one representative on the EMCDDA's Management Board, and whereas that body lays down the EMCDDA's annual research priorities,

J. whereas the Monitoring Centre's second three-year work programme (1998-2000) once again focuses on the area of reduction of the demand for drugs and outlines initial moves towards the collection of information and the analysis of national and Community strategies and policies,

1. Calls on the EMCDDA in the short term to step up its efforts to standardize the collection of key items of data in the area of reduction of health risks and of the demand for drugs (e.g. drug-related deaths, infection rates, crimes committed by drug addicts, data on current drug consumption);

2. Welcomes the evidence of progress set out in the EMCDDA's 1997 annual report by comparison with its 1995 annual report, and calls on the EMCDDA to make the improvements required to develop reliable and comparable methods, data systems and key indicators without delay;

3. Welcomes the emphasis the report places on demand and demand reduction, as urged by Parliament in its resolution of 13 May 1992 on education for health and drug misuse in the Member States of the European Community and the Council of Europe ((OJ C 150, 15.6.1992, p. 42.));

4. Notes the analysis of new trends in synthetic drugs set out in the first main section of the 1997 annual report, and, in this connection, draws attention to its resolution of 12 May 1998 on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the control of new synthetic drugs ((Minutes of that sitting, Part II, Item 6.)) and strongly urges that it be implemented;

5. Calls on the Member States to coordinate with the EMCDDA their efforts to collect data in the drugs sphere, with a view to providing better guarantees in future of the comparability of such data at European level; emphasises the importance of the National Focal Points (Reitox), whose data and reports are fundamental to the tasks of the EMCDDA; accordingly calls on Member States to fund these centres adequately and ensure that they are able and encouraged to cooperate with the EMCDDA and each other, so as to ensure that there is better comparability of data collected and that the EMCDDA is consequently better able to produce more meaningful conclusions;

6. Points to the fact that in a number of cases in Member States there is a split of operational and political responsibility for the Reitox centres; emphasises the importance of the work of the National Focal Points, whose data and reports are fundamental to the tasks of the EMCDDA, and trusts that they can carry out their activities with as much support and as little political interference as possible from national governments;

7. Calls on the EMCDDA to follow up its data collection work with an assessment of the various anti-drugs strategies and to submit that assessment to Parliament and the Council as an aid to decision-making;

8. Calls on the Monitoring Centre to draw up a marketing plan which takes account of the needs of the bodies for whom its reports and studies are intended;

9. Calls on the EMCDDA to draw up common definitions and indicators with a view to carrying out a cost-benefit assessment of the drugs policies and pilot projects carried out in the EU Member States, taking account of the health, socioeconomic and public order aspects;

10. Accepts that the annual report of the Monitoring Centre is its main item of written work and that this is supported by additional reports on specific subjects; nonetheless regards the presentation of an annual report on the state of the drugs problem as an insufficient return on the Monitoring Centre's work and looks to the EMCDDA in future to draw up comprehensive analyses in the abovementioned areas which, once complete, will be made available to all relevant institutions in the Member States and at European level;

11. Urges the EMCDDA in future to give greater publicity to the handy summary of its annual report so that it can serve as a general work of reference;

12. Regards it as essential that the EMCDDA should make a start on incorporating the applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus into the Reitox network and taking account of data from those countries in its reports and analyses;

13. Regards it as essential that in the foreseeable future the EMCDDA should also deal with the priority areas laid down in the constituent regulation which it has not so far covered and calls on the Monitoring Centre to draw up and submit a longer-term work programme which sets out a proposed timetable for dealing with these priority areas;

14. Supports the EMCDDA¨s plan to improve and expand the information on legal issues in its publications, and to this end to prepare a CD-ROM with the legal provisions adopted at European level on drugs;

15. Attaches great importance to gaining a clear insight into the working relationship and any possible points of friction between the Monitoring Centre and the National Focal Points, so that, on the basis of an assessment, measures can be taken to bring about improvements;

16. Urges that the increase in the budget of the EMCDDA should also have implications for the financial resources available to the Focal Points;

17. Emphasises that the EMCDDA should ensure that its three-yearly and annual work programmes and other relevant results from its work are prepared with a minimum of delay and are forwarded automatically and promptly to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission; wherever possible these reports should be presented by the Director of the EMCDDA to Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties;

18. Regards it as essential to improve and step up communication and cooperation between the European Parliament and the EMCDDA, in particular through Parliament's representatives on the EMCDDA's Management Board;

19. Stresses that the two representatives appointed on behalf of the European Parliament should attend a meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties at least once each year and report objectively on the performance of the Monitoring Centre;

20. Wishes to have an early assessment of the organisation of the EMCDDA, including the number of personnel and their role in the organisation; wishes also to be informed of the size and effectiveness of the Bureau and the Management Board of the EMCDDA;

21. Calls on the EMCDDA to provide the European Parliament with reliable and comparable statistics and data so that it may take objective decisions in the context of the forthcoming adoption of the EU's new action plan to combat drugs, and to step up cooperation with the UNDCP with the aim of strengthening the Centre's statistical work;

22. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the governments and parliaments of the Member States and the applicant countries.