Part 5. Summarized information about the way the Forum was held

The text below is only a part of the whole document. Although each part is published under a separate link, all of them should be considered as different chapters of one and the same document.

Part 5. Summarized information about the way the Forum was held.

The 1^st EU Civil Society Forum On Drugs took place in Brussels, on December 13 – 14, 2007. The agenda was proposed by the EC and consisted in resume of the following panels:

Registration; Opening and Introduction (the EC); Brief Presentation Of the Participants (tour de table)

Presentations (the EC):

Progress Review Of the EU Action Plan On Drugs;

Recommendation On Drugs And Prisons

Information About the Grant Programme On Drug Prevention, That Is To Be Launched In January 2008

Workshops Introduction (the EC)

Progress Review Of the EU Action Plan On Drugs;

Recommendation On Drugs And Prisons

Workshops

Closing pannel

Presentations From the Workshops And Discussion

Conclusions and next steps

The opening was made by the chair and moderator of the Forum - Mr. Carel Edwards. He started with a short introduction to the main aspects of the Forum – forming the team, the input the EC needs from the experts, the authority of the EC, the realistic possibilities for influencing practical changes, etc. After the short representation of the participants the EC presented:

Progress Review Of the EU Action Plan On Drugs – the EC presented their view on the current EU policies on drugs – accomplishments, achievements, failures, objective obstacles, expert's recommendations and input needed to influence improvements. The focus was on the EU Action Plan On Drugs which implementation is to be evaluated by the EC during 2008 as meanwhile a proposal for the next Action Plan has to be developed and presented to the HDG.

Recommendation On Drugs And Prisons – the EU still has not adopted any official documents to ensure regulations at EU level in the area. The presentation focused on the EC evaluation of the current situation and the recommendations, the EC found important to be considered, when the EU regulation papers on drugs and prisons are developed.

Information About the Grant Programme On Drug Prevention, That Is To Be Launched In January 2008 – the last presentation was only informative, as the possibilities of the new grant program of the EC were reviewed.

In the introduction of the workshops the EC set concrete requirements about the input they will need. The expert team was asked to focus on revealing the weak points in the presented documents (the EU Action Plan on Drugs and the EC recommendations on drugs and prisons) and make recommendations for amendments.

INPUD representative Milena Naydenova chose to work on the EU Action Plan. Since the very beginning of the workshop the cooperation between the supporters of the harm-reduction and the prohibition was not possible. To secure the experts' recommendations from all possible views and approaches the representatives of the EC, who hosted the meeting without moderating it and directing the discussions offered the team to split again to two working subgroups.

Till the closing session the event was focused on the analysis of a part of the EU Action Plan and the recommendations that can enable a more effective implementation of the EU Strategy at national level.

During the closing session the recommendations of the three working groups were presented and discussed. The EC took the responsibility to accomplish and email to the members of the Forum the summarized outcomes and to organize the next meeting of the Forum in three months. Meanwhile the participants should inform the members of their organizations about the event as the EC promised to take into consideration all email remarks and comments sent by the participants after the event.

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