The European Parliament adopted the resolution drafted by Inger SEGELSTRÖM (PES, SE), with 528 votes for, 16 against and 8 abstentions, and approved the Commission’s proposal on the drugs prevention and intervention programme in first reading, whilst bearing in mind the Council’s views. Parliament approved a series of amendments in plenary session, which sought to clarify the Commission’s proposal. In the consolidated version of the minutes of the session, the following amendments were integrated with the proposal:
- the programme must contribute to ensuring a high level of human health protection and to reducing drug-related health damage;
- the general objectives of the programme are re-defined: to prevent and reduce drug use, dependence and drug related harms; to contribute to the improvement of information on drug use; to support the implementation of the EU Drugs Strategy;
- the specific objectives now include supporting measures aimed at preventing drug use, including by addressing reduction of drug related harm and treatment methods considering the latest state of scientific knowledge. The programme will also evaluate the implementation of specific actions under the Drugs Action Plans 2005–2008 and 2009–2012. The European Parliament should be involved in the evaluation process through its participation in the Commission's evaluation steering group;
- specific transnational projects of Community interest may now be presented by at least two Member States (and not three, as the Commission had suggested), or at least one Member State and one other state which may either be an acceding or a candidate country under the conditions set out in the annual work programme;
- participating countries include the western Balkan countries included in the stabilisation and association process in accordance with the conditions laid down in the association agreements. Projects may associate candidate countries not participating in the programme where this would contribute to their preparation for accession, or other third countries or international organisations not participating in this programme where this serves the aim of the projects;
-Parliament specified that with regard to drugs, youth, women, vulnerable groups and problematic neighbourhoods are groups at risk and should be identified as target groups. Other target groups are, inter alia, teachers and educational staff, parents, social workers, local and national authorities, medical and paramedical staff, judicial staff, law enforcement and penitentiary authorities, NGOs, trade unions and religious communities;
- access to the programme will be open to public or private organisations and institutions working in the area of information on and prevention of drugs use. Organisations which are profit oriented will have access to grants under the programme only in conjunction with non profit oriented or state organisations;
- types of intervention are defined as grants and public procurement contracts. The maximum rate of co-financing will be specified in the annual work programmes;
- Parliament clarified implementing procedures, and the distinction between decisions to be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny and decisions to be adopted in accordance with the advisory procedure;
- complementarity with the methodology and best practices developed by European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction will be assured, in particular with regard to the statistical element of information on drugs;
- Parliament insisted on better surveillance by the Commission on all levels of monitoring and on the annual evaluation;
- the Commission will lay down guidelines to ensure the visibility of the funding granted under the Decision.
It should be noted that the financial envelope for the implementation of the instrument from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013 is EUR 21.35 million.
Parliament emphasised in the recitals that: the programme aims at the implementation of targets identified by the EU Drugs Strategy 2005-2012 and EU Drugs Action Plan 2005-2008 and 2009-2012 by supporting projects aiming at prevention of drug use, including by addressing reduction of drug related harm and treatment methods considering the latest scientific knowledge; special attention should be paid to the prevention of drug use among young people and the main challenge in prevention is to encourage young people to adopt healthy lifestyles; complementarity with the technical expertise of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction should be assured by making use of methodology and best practices developed by the Centre and by Centre's involvement in the preparation of the annual work programme.