The EU4Monitoring Drugs (EU4MD) project advisory committee held its third meeting today to take stock of results achieved to date and outline its next steps. The EU-funded project was launched in January 2019 for an initial period of three years and, following an extension of six months, will run until 30 June 2022.
Today’s online meeting — organised by the EMCDDA and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) — brought together over 40 participants. These hailed from 13 partner countries as well as the European External Action Service, the Council of Europe’s Pompidou Group, UNODC and two EU agencies (Europol and CEPOL). The meeting reviewed preliminary results of ongoing work as well as perspectives for the coming months.
Involving countries in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) area, the project supports national and regional readiness to identify and respond to drug-related security and health threats. The participants acknowledged that important steps had already been taken to boost drug-related data-collection capabilities in the ENP partner countries and expressed their readiness to continue close cooperation and exchange of information. To date, the project has run 10 data-collection initiatives and 27 training sessions.
EU4MD video
Coinciding with the meeting, a video showcasing the project — ‘EMCDDA beyond EU borders: spotlight on countries neighbouring the EU (EU4MD)’ — was launched on the EMCDDA’s YouTube channel. The video is in English with subtitles available in French and Russian.
Futures seminar
Also today, the EMCDDA organised a ‘Futures’ seminar, where participants discussed emerging drug-market trends in the South and East ENP regions. Taking 14 megatrends as their starting point, they deliberated the question: ‘What are the implications of these megatrends for the drugs field?’ The outcome of the seminar will feed into ongoing drug market analyses at the EMCDDA.
