A TESTCASE FOR TRANSPARENCY
CITIZENS' PLATFORM CALLS FOR OPEN DIALOGUE ON DRUGS
26 September 2006
The European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies, ENCOD, today
presented its comments to the Green Paper issued by the European Commission in June this year, dealing with the role of civil society in the design of drug policy in the EU.
According to ENCOD, the process of involving civil society in European drug
policy can become a testcase for transparency in the European Union. "
Drugs and drug problems are among the issues that concern EU citizens most.
But authorities do everything to avoid an open debate on what kind of
policies we need to face these problems. They do not wish to be challenged
on their traditional way of thinking drugs ", says ENCOD, a coalition of
150 citizen associations from 24 European countries.
EU governments started to work out the concept of a common drug policy in
1990. Several Strategies and Action Plans on Drugs have been adopted since.
"But always far from the attention of citizens and even parliaments", says
ENCOD. "The current Action Plan on Drugs, that was approved in June 2005,
ignores completely the outcome of the evaluations of earlier strategies as
well as the recommendations of the European Parliament that were pointing
in the direction of a fundamental change in drug policies. EU Governments
continue with policies that everybody knows do not work, " says ENCOD in
its comments.
In the Green Paper, the European Commission has presented several options
for installing a dialogue with civil society on drugs. The initiative seems
to be motivated by the current tendency inside the European Commission to
increase the role of citizens in decision-making processes. However,
according to ENCODs coordinator Joep Oomen, it remains the question if the
Commission understands what dialogue with citizens is all about.
"Involving civil society in a dialogue on drug policy can only be
successful if it takes place in an open and transparent setting. This is
not the case with the proposals in the Green paper on drug policy. Take for
example the fact that the Commission reserves the right to select the
people who are allowed to the dialogue. As a justification for this
position, the Commission invokes the fear that the forum could become a
platform for ideological debates. Apart from the fact that this is an easy
excuse to ensure the control of the "dialogue" remains in Brussels, it also
shows that the Commission still does not understand that in a sincere
dialogue, debates are necessary. If all participants speak on the basis of
evidence, these debates can easily be managed ."
Therefore, the only way to ensure a transparent dialogue, says ENCOD, is to
avoid the exlusion of any possible stakeholder in the process and to ensure
that the organisations who are invited to the dialogue are accessible to
any EU citizen. Of the 16 European civil society networks that exist today,
only 2 are made up of associations that are open to all citizens. The
others consist of organisations of professional health experts or
researchers working in the field of prevention, treatment and information,
the large majority of them subsidized by the state.
For the Green Pepper see
www.encod.org/GPENCOD.pdf
For the Green paper see
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2006/com2006_0316en01.pdf
For more information, please contact ENCOD at
EUROPEAN COALITION FOR JUST AND EFFECTIVE DRUG POLICIES (ENCOD)
Lange Lozanastraat 14
2018 Antwerpen
Belgium
Tel. 00 32 (0)3 237 7436 (Joep Oomen)
Mobile: + 33 6 148 156 79 (Farid Ghehioueche)
Fax. 00 32 (0)3 237 0225
E-mail:encod@glo.be
Website:
www.encod.org
A PLACE TO OVERGROW CANNABIS PROHIBITION:
http://www.cannabis-clubs.eu
