Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-16-Speech-5-034"
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"en.20000616.3.5-034"2
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"Mr President, we are examining two proposals for partial revision of the working procedures and methods of the Lisbon Drugs Monitoring Centre, in particular two proposals on relations with the candidate countries and Norway. This is therefore our chance – for the contents of these proposals are not in themselves revolutionary for the Centre – to discuss the role and usefulness of the Centre in terms of its function, which should also be our function, of providing political indications and assessments and adopting decisions and initiatives on drugs, although the European Union’s powers in this area are severely limited.
I would argue that this type of discussion can only be based on an evaluation carried out by an independent body. A number of speakers, including, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Turco, have stressed that from very many perspectives, such as strategy, functionality and the poor capacity to integrate scientific work, this Centre’s contribution to political decision-making is totally inadequate.
However, at this point I feel that it is necessary for the Commission to assume the responsibility of presenting a proposal for reform to Parliament as soon as possible, for we cannot record each year, if not the uselessness, the lack of usefulness of the Centre in terms of political decisions, and then each year, year after year, leave aside the debate and postpone it until the next year. The Commission must present a proposal for reforming the procedures which are described as bureaucratic and tedious and, above all, failing to focus on the scientific function of the Centre.
Another important point: each year, the Centre and the Commission tell us that there is a data harmonisation problem because the data-gathering criteria differ from country to country. This is a political issue. At this point, the Commission must table a proposal on how the data can be harmonised, or the whole exercise will be completely pointless. The Centre does not in itself have this authority, but it must provide the Commission with recommendations for data harmonisation and table a proposal – maybe a proposal for a directive – on the subject, because this is a political issue.
At the beginning of the 1990s, there was a great scandal in Italy because a leak from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Health revealed that they were hiding the real overdose mortality rate. Obviously, it is more convenient for politicians and governments to say that a young man has died in the street from a heart attack than to acknowledge that his death was caused by an overdose, and the same applies to policy-making. An official DG XIV document on alcohol consumption states that the Swedish authorities talk of there being 2000 deaths per year due to alcohol abuse in Sweden, while the real figure is between 6 000 and 7 000 deaths a year, but these figures serve to cover up the failure of their anti-drugs policy.
The data problem is therefore a political issue which must be resolved politically, by means of Commission proposals which Parliament may accept or reject."@en1
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