The Council today approved the EU strategy setting out the political framework and priorities for the EU’s drug policy in the period 2021-2025. The strategy aims to ensure a high level of health promotion, social stability and security and contribute to awareness raising. On the basis of this strategy, the Council will prepare an action plan which will set out concrete measures to achieve these priorities.

With this strategy, the EU and its member states reaffirm their commitment to an approach which is based on evidence, comprehensive and balanced between demand and supply reduction of drugs, with the preservation of human rights at its core. At the same time, this strategy uses the lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis in the drugs area and takes a future-oriented approach, promoting research, innovation and foresight to respond more effectively to increasing challenges and to anticipate them.

The drug phenomenon affects our communities in many different ways, from health, family and social relations, to violence and money laundering. This is a phenomenon that stretches across the globe and that no country can tackle alone. The EU strategy for 2021-2025 provides us with the tools to address it in all its dimensions, together with our international partners. It will also allow us to be more proactive in adapting our response to shifts in the way criminals operate or the development of new substances and trends.
Daniela Ludwig, German Federal Drug Commissioner

Under drug supply reduction/enhanced security the strategy targets all aspects of the illicit drug market, and includes the prevention of, dissuasion from and disruption of drug related crime, in particular organised crime, through judicial and law enforcement cooperation, intelligence, interdiction, confiscation of criminal assets, investigations and border management. This priority area has been further enhanced as compared to the 2013-2020 strategy, to respond to the challenging developments in European drug markets. These are characterised by a high availability of various types of drugs, ever larger seizures, increasing use of violence and huge profits, as well as the use of social media platforms, apps and the internet and darknet for illicit drug trafficking. Such features have not faded during the COVID-19 crisis, to the contrary.

The drug demand reduction policy area consists of a range of mutual reinforcing measures including prevention, early detection and intervention, counselling, treatment, rehabilitation, social reintegration and recovery. Such action needs to be appropriate to the local social context and the needs of the target population, be informed by scientific evidence and be safe and effective. It needs to be developed through the close collaboration of a number of health and social support services. The COVID-19 crisis has further revealed the need to ensure continuity of these actions.

A new, dedicated chapter has been added on addressing drug related harm. This section includes measures and policies to prevent or reduce the possible health and social risks and harm for users, for society and in prison settings. It covers aspects such as reducing the prevalence and incidence of drug-related infectious diseases, preventing overdoses and drug-related deaths and providing alternatives to coercive sanctions.

The strategy also identifies three cross-cutting themes in support of the policy areas:

• international cooperation: enhancing the role of the EU as a global broker for a people-centred and human rights-oriented drug policy through cooperation with third countries, regions and international organisations, while strengthening the commitment to development-orientated drug policies and alternative development measures.
• research, innovation and foresight: providing the EU and member states with the necessary comprehensive research and foresight capacities to address drug challenges in a more agile and proactive manner, increasing preparedness to respond to future challenges.
• coordination, governance and implementation: ensuring optimal implementation of the strategy, including via the key action of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and of Europol, involving civil society and providing adequate resources at EU and national level to achieve this.

Background

The EU drugs strategy 2013-2020 and the two action plans approved on that basis have provided the priorities for EU drugs policy during the past years. In July 2020, the European Commission presented an evaluation of this strategy and an EU agenda on drugs for 2021-2025. On this basis, the Council bodies have elaborated the EU drugs strategy 2021-2025.

• Tweet

• Tweet

Follow The San Pedro Sun News on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook. Stay updated via RSS

BRUSSELS – The European Union and the United Kingdom are heading into the weekend on a “last attempt“ to clinch a post-Brexit trade deal, with EU fishing rights in British waters the most notable remaining obstacle to avoid a chaotic and costly changeover in the new year.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday that the only way to get a deal is for the 27-nation bloc to compromise since “the U.K. has done a lot to try and help, and we hope that our EU friends will see sense and come to the table with something themselves.“

“That’s really where we are,” Johnson said, adding “no sensible government“ could agree to the EU demands as they stand.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier told the EU parliament both sides were in the “home straight of the negotiations,“ which have already come a long way in nine months of talks but are still short of a final compromise.

Barnier called it “a very serious and sombre situation“ if a deal falls through, with the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people at stake.

The European Parliament has set a Sunday night deadline for the talks since it still will have to approve any deal before Dec. 31, when a transition period following Britain’s Jan. 31 withdrawal from the EU will expire.

“It’s the moment of truth,“ Barnier said. “We have very little time remaining — just a few hours.”

A failure to reach a post-Brexit deal would lead to more chaos on the borders at the start of 2021 as new tariffs would add to other impediments to trade enacted by both sides. The talks have bogged down on two main issues over the past days — the EU’s access to U.K. fishing waters and assurances of fair competition between businesses.

“We have reached the hard nuts to crack,” Barnier said.

Johnson has made fisheries and U.K. control over its waters a key demand in the long saga of Britain’s departure from the EU.

Barmier said the EU understood and respected the U.K’s. desire to rule its own waves, but said that “a credible period of adjustment” had to be given, if EU boats are to be kicked out of British waters despite centuries of tradition of sharing them.

On top of that, the more London denies access to its waters, the more the EU can impose duties and tariffs.

“The European Union also has to maintain its sovereign right to react or to compensate,” Barnier said, highlighting that the U.K. seafood industry is extremely dependent on exports to the 27-nation bloc.

Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain have issued a joint letter calling on the European Union to clearly prioritise renewable energies under an EU-led project aiming to accelerate hydrogen deployment, research and infrastructure.

The European Union launched on Thursday (17 December) a hydrogen “project of common European interest”, or IPCEI, with 23 European countries signing a manifesto paving the way for a cleaner hydrogen value chain.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier chaired Thursday’s launch event, which saw Norway and 22 other European countries signing a declaration of intent, or manifesto, in support of the initiative.

However, the five EU countries see the move with scepticism, warning the initiative must not be used as a backdoor to finance fossil gas infrastructure.

“Spain bets exclusively on renewable hydrogen, and considers that EU funds and regulatory support to renewable hydrogen should be prioritised before low-carbon hydrogen, produced with natural gas (blue hydrogen) or nuclear,” an EU source told EURACTIV.

The European Commission sees hydrogen as “a vital missing piece of the puzzle” to achieve deeper decarbonisation in industries like steelmaking and chemicals, which cannot be electrified entirely.

“Clean hydrogen will help our European industries decarbonise, be resilient and stay globally competitive,” said Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market Commissioner, who was present at the launch event.

Hydrogen: “renewable” or “low-carbon”?

EU member states have squabbled over the past weeks about which type of hydrogen to support, with two opposing camps facing off: those backing green hydrogen produced exclusively from renewable electricity, and those in favour of a broader “low-carbon” definition, which also includes nuclear power and decarbonised gases.

Supporters of “blue” hydrogen say natural gas will be needed in the short term to ramp up production volumes and grow the EU’s hydrogen market, which is currently tiny.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief, sought to clarify the Commission’s approach, saying regulatory support will be targeted only for projects that can make a significant contribution to the EU’s long-term climate goals.

“Developing technologies for low-carbon and, in particular, green hydrogen, and building the necessary infrastructure for its deployment, will take us one step closer to making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050,” she said in a speech at the launch event.

IPCEIs were set up in 2014 and allow EU member states to subsidise high-risk cross-border research and innovation, as well as infrastructure projects, without having to observe the EU’s normally strict state aid rules.

“No member state or business can do this alone,” Vestager stressed. “That’s why it makes sense for European governments to come together to support such important projects of common European interest, if the market alone would not take the risk. And it is why we have put special state aid rules in place to smooth the way.”

But the five EU countries are worried that the new hydrogen IPCEI will be used to support “low-carbon” hydrogen made from natural gas or nuclear power.

They say they signed up to the manifesto – but only “with the understanding that this initiative should exclusively refer to hydrogen from renewable energy sources since we consider this technology as the only long-term sustainable solution to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.”

“Projects within an IPCEI must respect the principle of the phasing out of environmental harmful subsidies,” the signatories of the letter wrote. “Therefore, an IPCEI on hydrogen must only be eligible when produced from renewable sources, where a clear market gap is identified,” the letter said.

The letter was signed by the environment ministers of Austria (Leonore Gewessler), Denmark (Dan Jørgensen), Luxembourg (Claude Turmes), Portugal (João Pedro Matos Fernandes) and Spain (Teresa Ribera Rodríguez).

They were supported in their move by environmental groups, which have expressed doubts about the EU’s hydrogen manifesto.

“This initiative must not become a cover to throw public money into fossil fuels,” said Rita Tedesco from ECOS, a pressure group specialised in green standards.

“Any public support must only be directed to hydrogen produced 100% from renewable sources. The Commission needs to watch this closely, making sure that the renewable origin of publicly-backed hydrogen is certified through a credible certification system.”

“All other types of hydrogen must be excluded from public support, including so-called ‘low-carbon hydrogen’, which increases the risk of greenwashing and would only bring fossil fuels through the backdoor’,” Tedesco said.

[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]