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THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

by EU LOBBY CAMPAIGN

A Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union says more about the selection committee then about the EU.

The EU as an example of democracy, human rights and transparent dialogue? Think again.

Inside the European Union, on a daily basis, human rights are violated and principles of transparency and democracy are overruled by the prohibition on drugs. No serious political debate can take place on the question whether there are safer, healthier and more effective ways to tackle the drug issue.

In december 2004, the European Parliament issued a list of recommendations for European drug policy in which it asked for “measures totally different from those currently selected to achieve the overall EU Drugs Strategy objective, (..) since the relevant proposals are inadequate”.

Nothing happened with these recommendations. In the past 8 years, various experts, former presidents and celebrites have called for an end to the war on drugs. In March 2010, the European Commission published an evaluation report that concludes that drug policies have not only been able to reduce drug problems, they have worsened these problems.

In the coming weeks the European Union will draw up a set of guidelines which will serve as the basis for a Europe wide strategy on drugs for the coming 8 years. The fundament of drug policies, prohibition, remains untouched. Meanwhile, police forces around Europe keep chasing consumers, small dealers and cannabis growers, while harm reduction policies are threatened by cuts in public expenditure.

Drug consumers do not have rights in Europe, they have favours which can be taken away from them any moment.

Who believes the European Union promotes the concept of dialogue with civil society should read the following. This concept has been repeated over and over again in documents released by the various EU drug policy agencies over the past decade; indeed, it was among the main recommendations of many evaluation reports, declarations of EU Drug Summits and even Drug Action Plans. However, such a consultation has never taken place, thanks to the systematic manipulation by the European Commission.

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EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND ITS (PUBLIC) CONSULTATIONS ON DRUG POLICY

by 2011

On 19 October 2011, the European Commission announced a public consultation on drug policy.

For this consultation, a private company was hired (the Rand Corporation). This company organises the consultation through a survey which can only be filled in by people who receive a special code.

We do not know who are the people who receive this code, how they are selected, on which criteria, who they represent, on which evidence their responses are based.

We know some of those who receive this code are those who integrate the socalled Civil Society Forum. Most of them do not represent anyone but a small group of individuals who depend from governmental support. Those organisations are recognised by the European Commission as civil society counterparts not because they represent anyone, but because they support a status quo in drug policies. Thus the voices that call for a profound reform of drug policies, coming from a large majority of those who are affected and concerned with drugs out there where the issues are happening, can safely be considered as “marginal”.

This is not the first failure in the efforts of the European Commission to open up the dialogue with its citizens on drug policies

This is what democracy looks like in the European Union.