We were told that the European Commission does not have any authority to carry out drug policies: this remains a responsability of the Member States. Therefore we were asked to leave the ideological debate out of the room and to focus the discussion on evidence-based arguments. Carel Edwards then stated that, contrary to other continents, "there is no war on drugs in Europe". He provided no evidence to this statement.

The Civil Society Forum on Drug Policy should not become yet another addition to a long litany of failures. We propose to postpone this first meeting of the Civil Society Forum to a new date within the next 3 months, and use the two days in Brussels to discuss the way in which it should be organised next time.

1. Can the European Commission explain what are the reasons for not inviting all 75 organisations that applied to the August 17 deadline to the first meeting of the Civil Society Forum on Drug Policy in the EU?

2. Can the European Commission indicate, for each organisation that applied to the August 17 deadline, and for each organisation that ultimately made it to the selection, the specific reasons for selection and omission from selection?

On 13 & 14 December 2007, the European Commission organised the first meeting of a Civil Society Forum on Drug Policy in the European Union. This forum is meant to strengthen cooperation with civil society in the field of drug policy at EU level.

The forum is the outcome of a process that started in January 2006 with a Conference on Civil Society and Drugs in Brussels. Approximately 60 civil society representatives attended this event.

In June 2006, the European Commission published a Green Paper on the role of civil society in drug policy in the EU. Organisations representing citizens concerned by the drugs phenomenon were asked to produce comments to this Green Paper. The Commission received 56 responses of civil society organisations.

In July 2007, the Commission called for organisations that wished to take part in the dialogue forum to send an application before 19 August. There were 75 respondents. On 31 October the Commission finally selected 26 organisations to take part in the first meeting of the forum. In the letter, the Commission promised to publish the list of all respondents to the call, but this did not happen. After many efforts to obtain the list, ENCOD finally obtained a copy early April 2008.

On 23 November, ENCOD wrote a public letter to the European Commission to ask for explanations about the reasons why organisations were selected and others not.

On 29 November we recieved a reply from the Commission on this letter.

On 13 December we presented a statement to the participants at the civil society forum.

The forum took place on 13 & 14 december. Here you can read ENCODs report on the forum.

On 31 January 2008 the European Parliament started the discussions on report concerning the Civil Society Forum.

On 11 March 2008 the European Commission announced a call for proposals for Civil Society organisations to obtain grants in order to participate in the dialogue on drug policies. ENCOD refused to apply for this grant, which it considers as an effort to buy the silence of citizens.

Here is a list of the organisations that have been selected to the CSF, some information on their background, who they claim to represent and their earlier role in the consultation.

The European Union offers an excellent opportunity to compare the impact of different policies and facilitate the exchange of information and experiences with good and bad practices. As such, co-operation in the field of drugs policy, both between countries and between institutions and civil society organisations, may help to develop effective approaches without making too many avoidable errors in the process.