Drug policies in Europe Anita Gradin, Commissioner responsible for Home and Justice Affairs

 DN: SPEECH/97/243     Date: 1997-11-13

SPEECH/97/243

Anita Gradin
Commissioner responsible for Home and Justice Affairs

Drug policies in Europe

Round table - EC-Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB)

Bangkok, 13 November 1997

Mr Chairperson, ladies and gentlemen,

Let me first say how pleased I am that we have been able to organise this workshop and that I am grateful to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) for having agreed to co-host it with us.

I am on a visit to Laos and Thailand to study counter narcotic work in these two countries. Apart from official talks and field visits, I also want an opportunity to have an informal discussion on what can be done to strengthen EU and South East Asian co-operation in this complex area. I appreciate that you have taken the time to participate.

For some people, it comes as a surprise that the European Commission takes such a strong interest in the drugs problem. We are "newcomers" on the anti-drugs scene, and I can understand the reaction.

But it should not really be a surprise to anyone. We are involved because there is a strong link between the cross border nature of the drugs problem and the very foundations upon which the European Union is built.

Let me explain what I mean:

The overriding goal of the European Union remains to safeguard peace and political stability on our continent. The strategy we have chosen is to develop a tight web of contacts between our Citizens in many different areas.

To achieve this, free movement of goods, services, capital and people is fundamental.

So far we have been successful in making it possible for goods, services and capital to move more or less freely within the EU. But the fact is that people are still obliged to carry identity cards when they travel.

So there is still a major obstacle to be removed before the vision of free movement of people in Europe becomes a reality.

One must ask why we have not yet succeeded in achieving free movement of people in Europe? There are many reasons of course and my feeling is that the obstacles were underestimated in the beginning. Some of them are quite fundamental.

One important obstacle is of course that borders still mean something. They symbolise not only identity but they also provide a sense of safety and security to our Citizens. The point is that if we want to remove internal border controls in Europe, we must first show that this will not have negative effects for the safety and security in people's daily life.

This is our challenge!

What it really means is that we must create a political climate in Europe where Member States can have confidence in each others capacity to deal with sensitive security issues. In a few words, this is what co-operation in Justice and Home Affairs is all about.

In fact we are talking about several challenges. Within the field of Justice and Home Affairs, there are many areas where co-operation between Member States must be improved. Migration and asylum issues are two examples, co-operation in the judicial area a third.

However, some areas are more urgent than others. Combating drugs is clearly one of those! This is in fact seen as a top priority by more than 90% of the Citizens in most of our Member States.

The difficult question is what our priorities should look like.

When I took office almost three years ago, I realised that there was a need for a better overview of what the drug situation actually looks like within the EU. Without such an overview, it is not possible to set our priorities right.

In 1995 I therefore invited all Member States of the EU to a conference on "Drug Policies in Europe". The conference was co-organised with the European Parliament and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. The results were quite interesting.

One conclusion was that in many respects, our Member States have chosen quite similar strategies to deal with their drug related problems. To me, this is very encouraging as it means that there is a good basis on which to build a better European co-operation in this sensitive area.

A second thing which was highlighted was the need for reliable and comparable information on the exact nature of the drugs problem in Europe as a whole. It was clear that different Member States defines the drugs problem in different ways and this makes it difficult to collect and compare data in a reliable way.

This is a real problem! Not just a statistical one.

If we want to build an efficient and coherent counter narcotics strategy in Europe, we must first have a good overview of what the problems actually look like in all our Member States. The drugs problem transcends national borders and it is therefore vital for policy makers to have a complete picture of what consequences their actions might have also in other countries.

If not, it will be very hard to build the kind of confidence we want to create among our Member States. I am therefore convinced that we need to develop a common information strategy in the drugs area.

We have already taken a first step in this direction by establishing a European drugs observatory (the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction) in Lisbon. Its mandate is twofold:

First: the Monitoring Centre has built up an information network allowing collection and comparison of drug data in all Member States.

Second: the Observatory disseminates that information in ways which are easy to understand by decision makers and the general public. So far two yearly reports have been published covering data for 1995 and 1996. These reports are far from perfect but they constitute a first step towards getting a complete picture of the scale of the problems we are facing in Europe.

What I am talking about may sound to you like a purely technical problem. But I can assure you it is not! It involves some very fundamental political issues.

Let me give you some concrete examples:

In some of our Member States, regular Cannabis users are registered as hard core addicts. In those countries, the notion of "soft" drugs does not exist. In other Member States, Cannabis users will hardly ever appear in official statistics and certainly never as hard core addicts. The consequence is that in the official statistics it will appear that some countries have more hard core addicts than others.

We can see the same problems with data describing drug related deaths. In some of our Member States these are registered. But in others they are not. This will, of course, also influence the public image of the seriousness of the problem and whether the drug policies are successful or not.

The need for more similar information strategies is an issue which is not normally discussed in the context of international co-operation. I think it should be. The experiences we have in Europe are not unique. There are many other regions facing similar problems and debates.

I would therefore very much welcome your comments on this aspect from a South East Asian point of view.

Let me now turn to a different problem.

As I said, the yearly reports of the Monitoring Centre in Lisbon provide us with vital information on current drug trends in Europe.

One trend that the Centre has pointed out for two years in a row, is the increase in the consumption of chemical drugs by very young people. Teenagers in Europe, often below 15 years of age, seem to be oblivious to the risks involved.

I realised the seriousness of this problem already during the Conference on Drugs Policies in December 1995. It has worried me a great deal since then. As soon as I had confirmation that this was indeed a problem all over Europe, I decided to try to make this a high priority question on EU:s political agenda.

I instructed my services to undertake a detailed analysis of the problem and we managed to present a Communication to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on this subject in a very short time. Our conclusion was that we needed to do at least three things:

1. First to create an early warning system for better information sharing in Europe. When a new type of Amphetamine is put on the market in one Member State, it soon reaches the others. It is therefore necessary to create a rapid information system so that we can keep each other better informed when new substances are on their way.

Let me give you a concrete example of how it works:

Last week, a completely new type of Ecstasy was discovered in the Netherlands. The manufacturers of this drug had mixed Ecstasy with a heart medicine. The result is a particularly deadly product. This week, the Swedish forensic laboratory is analysing what they think might be the same drug. This just shows how fast it goes.

I hope that next time something like this happens, all Member States would be aware of new developments before the drugs have actually reached their borders.

2. Secondly, it is logical that all 15 Member States will want to make their own analysis of a new drug they discover. But once it has been analysed, I would like the results to be shared with all other Member States. If not, we will not be able to benefit from each others expertise and experience.

3. Thirdly, we need to find a way to prohibit new synthetic drugs faster. Many of our Member States have legislation based on the definitions we have in the relevant UN-conventions. In practice, this means that it can take more than two years before a new Amphetamine type drug appears on the prohibition lists.

This is not good enough!

We have many cases in Europe where customs and police in fact have had to return drugs which have been seized just because it takes too long to prohibit them.

That is simply not acceptable!

Some of our Member States are among the most important producers of chemical drugs in the world. I am particularly thinking of the Netherlands and Belgium.

A recent and very disturbing trend is that the Dutch and the Belgian producers are starting up drug laboratories in Eastern and Central Europe. In fact 50% of all Amphetamines seized in Stockholm are now produced in Poland. We can see the same trends when it comes to Ecstasy.

To me, this development is frightening and gives cause for serious concern. We must reverse this trend not the least to safeguard our international credibility. Europe must clean its own house if our supply reduction efforts in other parts of the world are to be taken seriously.

International co-operation in the counter narcotics area is absolutely essential. The problems are similar in many parts of the world and it is no longer useful to distinguish between producing, consuming and transit countries. We all carry a shared responsibility.

I find the developments in many parts of the world a cause for serious concern. We see year after year how the production capacity increases, in Europe, in Latin America and in Asia. We are also witnessing the New Independent States (NIS) entering the drug-producing scene. This is happening despite our many efforts to reverse the trend. The figures presented in the UNDCP World Drug Report should serve as a warning bell.

What can we do? What strategy works and what does not work?

My visits to many different parts of the world form part of an effort by the Commission to search for answers to these questions. So far I have been to Latin America to study the Cocaine production problem. I have also visited North Africa to see what can be done to reduce the production of Cannabis.

It is evident that there is not one single model which can be applied everywhere. Each region is different, and the strategies must be tailored accordingly.

One thing is clear: resources in the counter narcotic area will continue to be limited. The days are over when the EU could expect Member States to automatically increase the budget from one year to the next. Budgetary restrictions apply to the European Union in exactly the same was as they do in our Member States. This also affects efforts in this area.

The bottom line is that all national governments have severe budget restrictions while the drug cartels don't. What conclusions should we draw from that?

The EU is investing substantial resources in the fight against drugs. So are many our Member States on a bilateral and multilateral basis. Co-ordination at all levels is therefore essential. There is simply no room for double work and we need to get more value for our money.

The truth is that the criminal organisations behind the drug trade not only have unlimited resources. They have also started to co-operate with each other. This is a relatively new phenomenon on and it seems that they have no problems in overcoming cultural, geographic or linguistic barriers.

We know for example that Latin American organisations have recently been in contact with Turkish criminal structures in order to use the Balkan route for shipping Cocaine into Europe.

At least in this respect, I believe Europe can be competitive. I am particularly thinking of the creation of EUROPOL. In the area of police and customs work, this means that our potential for cross border co-operation has increased substantially.

Once the Convention has been ratified by all Member States, Europol will become fully operational. Today, work has already started and the Europol Drugs Unit (EDU) has a mandate to work with drugs, trafficking in human beings, stolen cars and nuclear material.

Once Europol comes into full existence, we will also have better possibilities for improving police- and customs co-operation with counterparts in many other parts of the world.

These are some of my thoughts on the priorities in the drugs field as far as the European Union is concerned. They are all questions very much at the forefront of the public debate in Europe. The drugs issue has, for example, been discussed at five consecutive meetings of the Heads of Government and Heads of State, the so called European Council.

And these issues are on the agenda of the New Transatlantic Dialogue with the United States, the Barcelona Process with the countries of the Mediterranean region, and they form part of the EU-ASEAN agenda. Furthermore, the European Commission has actively participated in developing a regional action plan for the Caribbean region and we are currently discussing how to approach our co-operation with the Latin American countries.

So I think I can safely say that the political will to improve co-operation an co-ordination is there. What we need now is concrete ideas and plans on how to proceed nationally, regionally and internationally.

It is now we need the advice of experts and practitioners on how to turn this will into concrete action. It is now we need to build on the experiences of the past.