Coordinating efforts to address Europe’s drugs problem and using resources effectively were among the pledges made today by the EU drugs agency (EMCDDA) and the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe in a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Strasbourg.

The agreement was endorsed in the margins of the 15th Ministerial Conference of the Pompidou Group, opening today at the Council of Europe headquarters, during which a new Pompidou Group work programme will be decided for 2011–14. The signatories of the MoU were Secretary-General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland and EMCDDA Director Wolfgang Götz.

The EMCDDA and the Pompidou Group have worked closely together for over 15 years. The Pompidou Group is a permanent observer on the EMCDDA Management Board, while the EMCDDA participates at the meetings of the Pompidou Group’s Permanent Correspondents. Today’s agreement updates and replaces the first MoU signed between the two bodies in 1999.

Under the new agreement, cooperation between the two bodies will be decided on the basis of their respective work programmes, and progress on joint activities will be documented in an annual report. The MoU allows for a regular exchange of information and technical expertise between the two bodies, encouraging the creation of synergies to avoid any duplication of effort.

In the area of data collection and analysis, the MoU advocates the promotion, by both parties, of standards and methodologies, as well as the use of measurement methods, tools and instruments such as those developed and documented by the EMCDDA and its Reitox network.

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Cooperation group to combat drug abuse and illicit trafficking in drugs (Pompidou Group)
The Pompidou Group is an inter-governmental cooperation group with a mission to contribute to the development of sound drug strategies and programmes which respect human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Group seeks to link policy, practice and science and focuses specifically on the realities of implementing drug programmes locally. It has 34 Member States.

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
The EMCDDA is the EU’s central reference point on drugs. It is an information agency mandated to collect, analyse and disseminate ‘factual, objective, reliable and comparable information concerning drugs, drug addiction and their consequences’. In providing information of this kind, it furnishes the EU and its Member States with an evidence base on the European drugs problem to underpin the drug policy debate. It has 28 members (27 EU Member States + Norway) but also works with candidate countries to the EU (Croatia and Turkey) as well as, among others, with countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy.