Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-16-Speech-5-027"
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"en.20000616.3.5-027"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Regulation No 302/93, the amendment of which is the subject of this report, establishes and regulates the operations of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Since 1993, this agency has made a significant contribution to increasing our understanding of the drugs phenomenon in all its various aspects, within the European Union.
With the enlargement of the Union approaching, the Commission has taken the view, and rightly so, that the Monitoring Centre has a role to play, together with the candidate countries within the framework of a pre-accession strategy. What needs to be done, therefore, is to prepare those countries to take part in the Monitoring Centre’s activities, specifically by creating the appropriate conditions for establishing structural relations with the REITOX network, which collates and undertakes a statistical analysis of the figures supplied by Member States in this field.
In specific terms, we intend to entrust the Monitoring Centre with projects funded by the PHARE programme in the area of drug information systems. We must recognise the fact that the content of this report, which attempts to express the opinion of the European Parliament, exceeds the scope of the Commission’s proposals. It must be stated that, since 1993, when the Centre was opened, there has never been an opportunity to review the regulation governing it, through an assessment of how it uses the instruments at its disposal and of the task that has been entrusted to it. Nor has there been an opportunity to bring in any changes that might be required. In the meantime, new figures have come to light, as a result both of its operating experiences and from the so-called “independent assessment report”, published this March, and even as a result of developments in the Union itself, in its
and in the challenges it faces.
The report now before you is based on the principle that Parliament cannot ignore these facts on the one occasion it has been able to state its position. On the one hand, therefore, although the changes to the regulation proposed in this report go beyond the strict bounds of the changes that are essential for adapting the Monitoring Centre to the requirements of enlargement, on the other hand, these proposals have become absolutely crucial to the Monitoring Centre fulfilling its duties in a satisfactory way, even within the current Union framework.
Bearing this in mind, the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs considers it to be essential that the Monitoring Centre should be given the task of assessing the action undertaken by Member States, as well as by the Union, in their approach to drugs and drug addiction. This does not mean giving a specialised agency the scope to make political assessments which are incompatible with its nature. What it does mean is ensuring that there are better and more appropriate instruments on which political decisions can be based. These political decisions would be taken elsewhere, and by the appropriate people. It also means giving the public thorough and objective information with a view to improving the general understanding of such a socially sensitive issue. In practice, the Monitoring Centre must not function simply as an address to which the Member States send the data describing the situations in their countries, not always in the best conditions or on time.
It is the Member States’ responsibility to cooperate appropriately and promptly with the Monitoring Centre. The Monitoring Centre will have responsibility for collating the information and subjecting it to the appropriate statistical analysis, with the benefit that this data will be comparable. It will also be responsible, however, for analysing the data obtained based on the experience and the technical skills of its researchers. In this way, the experience of the various Member States in the fight against drugs can be of mutual benefit and political leaders will have a valuable instrument providing technical support for their decisions. To conclude, it is our view that we must start to take advantage of this European Agency. The complexity of the issues relating to drugs and drug addiction make an overhaul of the European Drug and Drug Addiction Centre more crucial than ever."@en1
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