Mon. Dec 23rd, 2024

Launch ceremony of the new European Union Drugs Agency EUDA

Jul 3, 2024 , , , ,

Lisbon, 3 July 2024

High-ranking officials are gathering in Lisbon today for the inauguration of the new European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA). The new agency replaces the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), which has been operating in Lisbon since 1995. New legislation which entered into application this week revises the EMCDDA mandate and name, and formally establishes the EUDA (1). The transformation marks a pivotal step in strengthening the EU’s capacity to address the health and security challenges posed by illicit drugs.

Following an external evaluation of the EMCDDA, the European Commission called for a broader and more proactive remit for the agency in January 2022 to help it address new challenges posed by an increasingly complex drug phenomenon. The EU legislative process was concluded in June 2023, setting the EMCDDA on a one-year transition course to becoming the EUDA.

The ultimate goal of the EUDA is to strengthen the European Union’s preparedness on drugs. New mechanisms have been created to help achieve this goal. These include a European Drug Alert System, to issue alerts when serious drug-related risks appear on the market, and a European Threat Assessment System to boost how the EU prepares for, and reacts to, emerging or potential health and security threats. The agency will be supported by a network of EUDA national focal points and a European Network of Toxicology and Forensic Laboratories, designed to foster information exchange on new trends and to train national toxicologists and forensic drug experts.

The agency’s work will be organised around four inter-connected service categories:

  • Anticipate: Helping the EU and its Member States anticipate future drug-related challenges and their consequences.
  • Alert: Issuing real-time alerts on new drug risks and threats to health and security.
  • Respond: Helping the EU and its Member States strengthen their responses to the drug phenomenon.
  • Learn: Facilitating EU-wide knowledge exchange and learning for evidence-based drug policies and interventions.

Among the officials present at today’s inauguration ceremony are:

  • European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson;
  • Portuguese Secretary of State for Health, Ana Povo;
  • Chair of the EUDA Management Board (Austria), Dr Franz Pietsch;
  • EUDA Executive Director, Alexis Goosdeel.
Working Arrangement with Ecuador

The new agency has been given a stronger role in the area of international cooperation. In the margins of the press conference, the EUDA will sign a Working Arrangement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility of Ecuador, in the presence of the Commissioner. The agreement will be signed by EUDA Executive Director Alexis Goosdeel and H.E. Ambassador Xavier Aliaga Sancho, Ambassador of Ecuador to the European Union. The agreement is designed to enhance cooperation in addressing drug-related challenges.

First Management Board meeting

From 4–5 July, the EUDA will host its inaugural Management Board meeting, chaired by Dr Franz Pietsch (Austria). This closed event will bring together for the first time the formally nominated Board members to take key institutional decisions linked to the new EUDA regulation. The Board will adopt its rules of procedure and elect members to the Executive Board and Budget Committee. It will also appoint members to the EUDA Scientific Committee and approve a list of experts for risk assessments of new psychoactive substances. A list of EUDA national focal points (and their heads) and of national representative laboratories appointed to the EUDA network of forensic and toxicological laboratories will also be presented to the Board. On 5 July, the meeting will be extended to include high-level representatives from candidate countries and potential candidates to the EU, as well as non-EU countries with which the EUDA collaborates. Executive Directors of other EU agencies will also attend. Geostrategic discussions will focus on international cooperation and emerging drug trends.

Quotes

European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson:

I am proud that the EU Drugs Agency is now equipped with a new and stronger mandate, supported by increased resources. From a monitoring centre for drugs and addiction to a fully-fledged EU agency enhancing the EU’s preparedness on drugs, it has an increased capacity to draw up early threat assessments, initiating faster mitigating measures, and a greater capacity to look into the drugs market and precursors. This represents a new impulse in our commitment to address the drug situation comprehensively and to step up efforts to fight drug trafficking and organised crime.

Chair of the EUDA Management Board, Dr Franz Pietsch:

  • The inauguration of the European Union Drugs Agency represents an important milestone in improving how Europe tackles present and future challenges in the drugs field. I am convinced that, with its fit-for-purpose mission, the EUDA will provide significant added value to policymakers and professionals as they address the causes and consequences of drug use.

EUDA Executive Director, Alexis Goosdeel:

I am delighted to declare that the European Union Drugs Agency is open for business. As the EUDA, we have a broader mandate to anticipate future drug-related challenges and to alert in real time on new drug risks and threats. We will also help the EU and Member States strengthen their responses and we will facilitate EU-wide knowledge exchange and learning for evidence-based drug policies and interventions. We are at a pivotal moment in the history of EU action in the field of illicit drugs and are on a clear course towards boosting EU preparedness in this complex field. I would like to thank the Commissioner, the EU institutions and the Member States for their support. I would also like to express my gratitude to my staff for their commitment and dedication. They have made extraordinary efforts to create the new agency while continuing to deliver on our current mandate.

Notes

(1) Regulation (EU) 2023/1322 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 June 2023 on the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) and repealing Regulation (EC) No 1920/2006.

The European Commission presented its proposal for a revised EMCDDA mandate on 12 January 2022. The European Parliament and the Council of the EU examined and adopted the new mandate, according to the EU ordinary legislative procedure.

Commission proposes stronger mandate for EU Drugs Agency as illicit market proliferates 12 January 2022

EU Drugs Agency: upgraded agency approved by Parliament 13 June 2023

Council gives final green light to creation of EU drugs agency 27 June 2023

Source – EUDA

 

EU Commissioner Johansson’s speech at the launch of the EU Drugs Agency

Lisbon, 3 July 2024

“Check against delivery”

This is great day. A big day. A big day for Europe. And a big day for all of you.

In January 2022 I proposed a new and stronger mandate for you.   And today, two years later, I am proud to be here in Lisbon to launch the new mandate for the European Drugs Agency.

You can be very proud as well, Alexis and your team. This new mandate is the sign of the great trust we all have in you. And can I also use this opportunity, Alexis, to thank you.

These five years of being the Commissioner for Home Affairs it’s been a pleasure to work closely with you and to have this agency under your leadership. And this stronger mandate will allow you to do an even better job than you do today. Warning Europe of the dangers of drugs. Since your establishment nearly thirty years ago.

You have become a centre of excellence on drugs. Your information is factual, objective, reliable. And essential for civil society, for academics and for government. Your monitoring detects emerging risks and new developments.

Your Early Warning System is key to alert Member States. So they can respond to new dangers. And for me personally your work has always been essential. When preparing my policies and initiatives against crime and drugs. Also on the global stage.

When you speak, I listen. Europe listens. And the world listens. And we must listen because you have something important to say. You show drugs are increasingly available, increasingly potent, increasingly dangerous. In your most recent Drugs Report, you warn of synthetic opioids. Last year especially Nitazines. Highly potent and extremely deadly.

You also show: More than half a million people injected drugs in the European Union. And more than 6000 people died of an overdose in just one year. And you show also that people in Europe are mixing drugs more and more. Taking potentially deadly cocktails of different kinds of drugs.

You are doing an excellent job. And I want to say today: you’re not alone. You are here in Lisbon, in Portugal. And maybe sometimes you feel a bit far away  from Brussels at the Western most point of Europe. But you are at the heart of Europe. You are part of a great European effort against crime and to counter the flow of drugs and the harm they cause.

Organised crime, drugs crime is one of the biggest threats we face today. Criminals undermine our societies with violence and corruption. Europol did a recent mapping of the most threatening criminal groups in the European Union.  They mapped 821 most threatening criminal groups.

More than half of them are specialised in drug trafficking. 70 per cent of them use corruption. They use the money from the drug trafficking, to buy politicians, to buy officials to buy access to ports, for example. 70 per cent of them use also violence, we can see that they are killing and threatening, also politicians, lawyers, journalists.

Almost 90 per cent of them are involved in the legal economy. Running ordinary businesses or infiltrating ordinary businesses. This is a huge threat towards our society. I should say that this threat is as big as the terrorist threat.

For nearly five years as Home Affairs Commissioner it has been my mission to significantly step up our fight against organised criminal groups. By improving police cooperation and information exchange. With asset recovery rules to take away criminal profits and to be able to follow the money. And in January this year I launched the European Ports Alliance. To stop criminal infiltration of our harbours.

The Ports Alliance is now becoming operational. We had 14 points when we started and now we have 31. I also was the first ever  European Home Affairs Commissioner to travel to Latin America. Isn’t that strange that had not happened before?

I did that of course because we need to work across the Atlantic to fight these criminal groups. We saw in this mapping of the most threatening criminal group that they contain 112 nationalities. So almost all groups are cross border and they are working also across the Atlantic.

It is important that we build our transatlantic relations because it takes a network to find the network. And following my visit to Colombia and Ecuador. We are conducting a security assessment of the Port of Guayaquil. And the EU is now negotiating agreements for Europol with five additional Latin American Countries. Ecuador being one of those.

This is important to allow police and law enforcement to access personal data and to do joint investigations.

And today, I will be here to witness the signing of a working arrangement between the Drugs Agency and Ecuador – and we have the ambassador here.

A working arrangement to collect data, monitor cocaine markets and improve observation. To set up early warning systems, exchange hanging strategies on prevention, health and social response to ensure the health and safety of citizens on both sides of the Atlantic, in Ecuador and the European Union.

More working arrangements are in the making. We need more partners in this fight. And the ability to work better together internationally is also possible thanks to your new mandate. Before signing the agreement with Ecuador we will officially launch the new EU Drugs agency. Which will give you new powers and possibilities.

You’ll be able to examine the danger of drug mixing – polysubstance use. And how we can counter it. You will have a stronger analytical capacity, thanks to a network of laboratories. You will be able to work more internationally. With key partners like Ecuador but also Colombia, Peru, Chile.

You’ll be able to issue early warnings with a new European Drug Alert system. You’ll have the capacity to make health and security threat assessments.

Alexis, to you and your team: Thank you for all you have done. Analysing and monitoring drugs. Warning of the danger for nearly 30 years. And thank you for preparing the transformation into the Drugs Agency in such a short time. I want you all to be very proud. You’re doing an excellent and important job. You protect people’s health and safety in Europe. And with the new mandate you will be able to do an even better job. Many congratulations and lots of success!

Source – EU Commission

 

Commissioner Johansson’s speech at the accession ceremony of Belgium and Germany to the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics (MAOC-N)

Lisbon, 3 July 2024
“Check against delivery”

 We’re here today. To say welcome, Belgium and Germany! Welcome to MAOC.

It is good to have you on board. Let me use this opportunity to specially address all those who are working for MOAC today.

Director Top, your staff, everybody in your own different capacity that are working for MAOC. You’re doing a very important job. Out there on the ocean. A battle is being fought. A ‘battle of the Atlantic’. Between organised criminal groups and the forces of law and order. We need to win this battle. And with your help we will.

You are Europe’s first line of defence against the organised criminals that flood our continent with drugs. The criminals that undermine our societies with violence and corruption. We heard the national director referring to the SOCTA report and the figures in there.

That was the last time I was in this headquarters actually, when we presented the serious and organised crime threat assessment from Europol. And after that we have seen Europol’s recent mapping of 821 most threating criminal networks shows 50 per cent of them traffic drugs. 70 per cent use corruption. They use their criminal profits to buy people, to buy politicians, to buy power. That’s where the money from the drugs goes, actually.

90 per cent of these most threatening networks infiltrate the legal economy. They are running ordinary businesses. Or infiltrating ordinary businesses. And sometimes you think if they use corruption, they don’t use violence. That’s totally wrong. Because they also use violence and sometimes very severe violence. And we have seen it clearly. And we have seen the killing, the threatening. Also of journalists, lawyers and politicians.

Innocent children are getting killed, in the crossfire of criminal violence. It’s time to say: The organised criminal threat is as big a threat to our society as the terrorist threat. And we must fight it with the same energy and determination and dedicate the resources we need. And let me take the opportunity to say that in my opinion, the availability and lawful access to data for law enforcement is crucial. And this has to be addressed urgently.

In this struggle, your intelligence, your information is decisive. Every day you help to counter this criminal danger. Your biggest ever success only three months ago: 10,000 kilos found by the French navy on a fishing boat heading from Brazil to Africa. Every ship seized. Every arrest made. Every kilo of cocaine destroyed is a blow against the criminal groups.

1200 kilos of cocaine found on a sailing ship boarded by the French navy south of Martinique.   More than 1000 kilos captured by the Spanish navy. On a sailing ship in the Canary Islands. Travelling from Surinam, destination Valencia. Cocaine that will no longer reach the streets of Europe. Thanks to you.

This operation in the Canaries disrupted a very sophisticated network. Capable of transferring drugs from ship to ship in the middle of the ocean.   Dismantled a dangerous gang who threatened to kidnap and kill a member of a rival network, to settle scores. This operation also ended the 30 year criminal career of a criminal mastermind.

A gangster known as the “Wikipedia Narco”. Known by that name because he proudly boasted on the Internet about the drugs he trafficked. He barricaded himself in his house. And pointed a shotgun at police when they came for him. Thanks to you, this dangerous criminal is now behind bars. When criminals use increasingly sophisticated methods.

We need to be even more sophisticated. And you show that every day when you support operations. Against drug traffickers using speedboats near Gibraltar. Or even submarines – like just last week in the Atlantic. The Drugs Enforcement Agency sent an alert to MAOC of suspicious activity. It looked like a drug transfer was about to take place at sea. You passed the information to the Spanish authorities. Which sent the customs ship “Fulmar” to intercept.

Nearly 300 km west of Cadiz the Fulmar spotted the submarine. The traffickers realised the game was up. And sank the vessel. Sending possibly 3000 kilos of cocaine down into the Atlantic. The traffickers were then picked up out of the water and arrested.

These examples also show: In your case the “long arm” of the law is very long indeed. You support operations. In Europe from the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar to the port of Ravenna in Italy. On the Atlantic from the Canaries in the East to Martinique in the West to the Gulf of Guinea off the coast of Africa. And that’s essential.

If criminals work together across the sea, across the ocean — we must do too, only better. Because it takes a network to defeat a network. The results of your work hit the newspaper headlines and the TV News. When criminals are arrested and drugs captured. Your own patient work of information gathering, information sharing rarely gets that spotlight. So that’s why I really want to take this opportunity to say: thank you.

You are doing a great job and an incredibly important job. I want you to know that you are not alone. You have the European Union behind you. We support you with 10 million euro in EU funds. And more than that: You are part of a great European effort to step up the fight against organised crime. And to counter the flow of drugs.

I have been Home Affairs Commissioner for nearly five years now and it has been my mission to significantly step up the fight against organized criminal groups. By improving police cooperation and information exchange. And in January this year I launched the European Ports Alliance.

I don’t need to tell you our ports are the main point of entry for drugs. Or how vulnerable our harbours are to criminal infiltration. I am glad to say the Ports Alliance is now becoming operational. Starting with 14 ports, a total of 31 ports have now joined. Working together, sharing information.

And I can also tell you that I was the first ever EU Home Affairs Commissioner who went to Latin America. It never happened before. Isn’t that strange? But I realised that to build this network to fight the criminal networks it was absolutely necessary to build transatlantic relations in the fight against organised crime. And tomorrow, I will witness here in Lisbon the signing of a cooperation agreement between Ecuador and our renewed EU Drugs Agency.  And we are preparing agreements for Europol to work with five Latin American countries.

Also with the possibility to share personal data and to do joint investigations. Because it takes a network to defeat a network, and it is good to see you are building this network. By taking part in the Fusion Centre in Ecuador, which will soon be set up with EU support. Based in Guayaquil – one of the main points of departure for drugs bound for Europe.

Goal of the fusion centre is to improve information sharing and cooperation between Ecuador and international partners. Once again, welcome, Belgium and Germany. Welcome to MAOC. Eight EU Member States and the United Kingdom now join forces in this centre. Together we are stronger.

And your contribution will mean: More liaison officers at MAOC. Immediately operational. More cooperation on operations. More intelligence shared. And I am sure: more intercepts at sea. More drugs seized. More criminals in prison. I very much look forward to seeing the results.

I wish you all the best in carrying out your important mission.

Source – EU Commission

 

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