The Council reached a political agreement on the text of the draft Decision establishing for the period 2007-2013 the Specific Programme "Drug prevention and information" as part of the General Programme "Fundamental Rights and Justice" at its meeting on 19 and 20 April 2007. Following the political agreement and the subsequent agreement reached by the three institutions as regards the outstanding issue of the committee procedure, the Council adopted, by unanimity, its common position on 23 July 2007.
Most of the amendments adopted by the European Parliament on 14 December 2006 have been incorporated in the common position which therefore meets the wishes of the European Parliament as expressed by the Parliament and accepted by the Council during the informal contacts leading up to the adoption of the European Parliament's position at first reading.
The last outstanding amendment which was not acceptable to the Council concerned the committee procedure. On this issue, it was finally decided to adopt the same approach as the one taken following the European Parliament’s 2nd reading of the specific programme "Civil Justice", in the framework of the General Programme "Fundamental rights and justice" (see summary dated 11 July 2007 of the procedure reference COD/2005/0040.
The agreement reached with respect to the Specific Programme "Civil Justice" has been applied to the "Drug prevention and information" programme. A new recital was therefore inserted in the text of the common position.
In addition to that, the Commission will make a declaration in which it undertakes to transmit the necessary information relating to the draft annual work programmes to the European Parliament.