Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-16-Speech-5-047"
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"Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would very much like to thank the rapporteurs for their labours and inform you that the Commission is delighted that we have the same goals. I say that notwithstanding the fact that some of your amendments go further than our proposals, particularly when it comes to the improvements proposed for the functioning of the Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
It is the aim of our second proposal to facilitate involvement of the candidate countries in the EMCDDA and to help these countries set up national centres and establish links with the REITOX network. Five out of the 22 amendments in the Sousa Pinto report relate directly to this issue.
It has not escaped our attention that Parliament expressly wishes to cite Malta, Cyprus and Turkey as the designated recipients of this technical assistance. It is our intention – and as I understand it, also that of the Council – to deliver this assistance to all candidate countries, therefore including Malta, Cyprus and Turkey. Accordingly, we intend to adopt the clarification you have introduced by mentioning Malta, Cyprus and Turkey separately, and we will defend it in the Council.
However, the Commission is unable to accept the extension of this provision to include third countries that do not have candidate status. This is because we are not aiming to make the EMCDDA an international centre for technical assistance, rather we want to equip it to transmit the information available to the candidate countries, in light of their future accession.
Like Parliament, we think it is essential to assess the drugs policy of the Member States. In fact this idea features in the drugs action plan 2000-2004, which is due to be discussed at the European Council in Feira. However, we do not think it is for the EMCDDA to assess the drugs policy of the Member States. After all, it is a political matter that should be passed on to the EU institutions to deal with, and not the EMCDDA, which is more of a technical bureau. What the EMCDDA
expected to do is to develop methodological instruments for assessing national policy. Activities of this kind can be undertaken with immediate effect, and are in fact included in the work programme for the year 2000, for example. The EMCDDA budget has been increased by EUR 500 000 to this end.
It does not seem to us to be the right moment to table a proposal for amending the EMCDDA regulation with a view to expressly including the development of a methodological evaluation instrument, and thereby making this kind of activity more transparent. There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, following on from the evaluation report, the Board of Directors of the EMCDDA is currently discussing the role and the tasks of the Monitoring Centre, and the Commission feels that we would be well-advised to await their conclusions before drawing up new proposals in this area.
Secondly, there is a risk that if we expand our proposal in this way, we will have a long discussion with the Council ahead of us and will be unable to reach a decision before the end of this year. If that happens, we would have to abandon a PHARE project costing EUR two million, intended to help the candidate countries in Eastern Europe to set up or reinforce national centres with the aid of technical assistance from the EMCDDA. It would not be possible to carry these funds over after 31 December 2000.
The other amendments not directly related to our proposal are mainly based on the evaluation report on the EMCDDA and they are said to lead to a detailed review of the basic regulation. In fact, the point of these amendments is to make it compulsory for Member States to supply the data requested by the Monitoring Centre, whilst hitherto there has been cooperation on a voluntary basis. The distribution of responsibilities between the director and the Board of Directors would change too, as would the way in which discharge of budget is granted. The latter point is a horizontal matter that must be applied equally across the board, and the Commission has submitted a proposal to the Council on this very subject.
Lastly, these amendments introduce the idea of compiling a report on the functioning of the EMCDDA every three years. The amendments tabled by Mrs Ilka Schröder all relate to the same subject in that they all seek to make the evaluation of risk reduction policy one of the tasks of the Monitoring Centre. What we are talking about here is terms that are open to different interpretations and which therefore have no place in the European Union’s strategy on drugs for 2000-2004. What is more, this topic should not be dealt with separately but as part of a well-balanced whole which also includes such issues as prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and accompanying social measures.
As I said earlier, Mr President, the Commission agrees with Parliament that the functioning of the EMCDDA must be improved. Let there be no mistake about that. But mainly because now is not the right time, we will not, as I said, table an amended proposal. The Board of Directors of the EMCDDA – on which the European Parliament is also represented – will take a number of decisions at the meeting in September on the basis of the evaluation report, and we think it would be better to await the outcome of this before proposing new amendments to the EMCDDA regulation, such as those concerning the evaluation.
When the Commission attends this meeting of the Board of Directors of the EMCDDA, it will defend the position that the functioning of the EMCDDA must be reviewed, and that the objectives and tasks must be clarified. Depending on the measures taken by the Management Board, the Commission will be able, if necessary, to table a proposal for the amendment of the EMCDDA regulation, which would also satisfy Parliament’s desire for periodic evaluation of the functioning of the EMCDDA. If it comes to that, then we will take due account of Parliament’s opinion when drafting the proposal.
The Commission agrees with Parliament that the functioning of the EMCDDA must be improved. I would remind you that it was the Commission that initiated the external evaluation of the EMCDDA. Naturally, we will take account of the recommendations made by this House and the decisions taken by the Management Board of the Monitoring Centre, which are based on the findings of this evaluation report.
However, our two proposals are much more comprehensive. The first proposal is intended to bring about an agreement with Norway. There is unanimous political agreement on this and I am pleased that the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is supporting this agreement too. This agreement is of major political significance for the Norwegians. After all, it demonstrates that they are keen to gain a better insight into the drugs phenomenon on the European continent. The agreement is also of significance to the European Union, because, as everyone knows, the drugs problem knows no borders.
Norway has received a copy of the evaluation report about the EMCDDA and has confirmed via the positive opinion issued by the Norwegian parliament that it is pleased to conclude this agreement. The Commission takes the view that we should not upset our Norwegian partners by linking the signing of this agreement with conditions concerning improvements to the functioning of the Monitoring Centre, thereby delaying the conclusion of the agreement.
Therefore, although the Commission has nothing against the content of the amendments in Mr Turco’s report, it will not be tabling an amended proposal on improvements to the functioning of the EMCDDA."@en1
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