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Resolution of the Executive Committee of the European Forum for Urban Security

Adopted in Cologne on 5 December 2024

Creating a coalition of European cities and regions to face the drugs crisis

Cologne, Germany, 5 December 2024 – “Everywhere. Everything. Everyone. ” This is the landscape of drugs today in Europe as described in the latest report (2024) from the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA). It notes that the impact of drugs is felt everywhere, that “almost everything with psychoactive properties can appear on the drug market, ” and that everyone feels the impact, across all social classes, whether a user or a citizen affected by trafficking in public spaces and the violence associated with it.

European cities and regions, whatever their size and the country they’re in, are seeing daily the impacts described by the EUDA. To say that this is a real crisis is not hyperbole: cities say that they are contaminated by trafficking, worsening violence and the consequences for social cohesion.

Nor is it an exaggeration to say that we have reached a stage where drug trafficking is undermining the foundations of our democracies. Firstly, because it seeks to infiltrate institutions and businesses. Secondly, because it engenders feelings of insecurity among citizens (they see drug trafficking in their neighbourhood, in the entrance hallways of their blocks of flats) and of abandonment by public authorities (“we respect the law, but 'they' traffic with impunity”). This in turn feeds populist extremism.

Creating a coalition of cities and regions

Many European cities and regions have been working on drug-related issues for years, running innovative prevention and countering schemes based on co-production with a wide range of local stakeholders. But today, given the seriousness of the situation, we need to move up a gear

to counter not only drug trafficking but also the collective feeling of powerlessness. We are convinced that local action, in addition to the international action needed to combat trafficking, can restore people's confidence in public action.

To demonstrate this, we are proposing to create a coalition of around 50 European cities that can stand together in a proactive and pragmatic way.

Demonstrating concrete results

Based on Efus' long experience in coordinating multi-stakeholder projects involving various European cities, we are proposing to support around 50 European mayors for five years, who would work together to strengthen and promote their local policies against drug-related violence and harm and demonstrate concrete results Efus would bring to this coalition of mayors its network of cities, experts and partners in Europe and internationally, its know-how in project management and its knowledge of tools, methodologies and effective practices not only in preventing and combating drug trafficking at local level, but also in crisis management.

Know-how and making it known

The roadmap for such a coalition of willing mayors would be to:

● implement and demonstrate 50 local strategies to prevent and combat drug-related violence and harm;

● exchange and support each other, contributing ideas and solutions, in particular to counter the feeling of isolation that some mayors and municipal staff may feel in the face of drugs;

● develop tools, pilot experiments and methodologies that can be transferred to other local authorities outside the coalition;

● train elected officials and their teams on developments in drugs, trafficking and possible responses;

● develop practical and political recommendations for decision-makers at all levels: local, national, European and international;

● position the coalition as an interlocutor with the European institutions, representing the local and regional authority sector;

● communicate regularly with the public about the coalition's activities and the results achieved.

Narcotraffic and organised crime

The European Forum for Urban Security (Efus), which represents 250 European cities and regions of all sizes and political affiliation, has been working on the issue of drugs at local level since it was founded over 35 years ago. Up until about ten years ago, Efus mainly explored prevention and harm reduction policies, promoting holistic approaches based on the respect for

human rights and operating through broad local partnerships. Since then, at the request of its member cities, in particular port cities directly affected by drug trafficking, it has stepped up its work on organised crime linked to drug trafficking.

At the last Security, Democracy and Cities conference in Brussels, in March 2024, the (outgoing) mayor of Rotterdam and vice-president of Efus, Ahmed Aboutaleb, called for greater cooperation between European cities and warned against the threats posed by trafficking to the rule of law Alexis Goosdeel, Executive Director of EUDA, called for pragmatism and inclusive policies towards users. Ine Van Wymersch, Belgium's National Drugs Commissioner, defended the need for cross-sectoral cooperation at the highest level: “We need to build a coalition between the public and private sectors and with civil society, ” she said.

Founding principles

All the work carried out over the years by Efus and its members on local drug policies is based on some founding principles on which all our members agree and which can be summarised as follows:

The first is that drugs pose health and security challenges that should not be seen as opposite to one another but rather as a whole. We therefore believe that any drug policy must be based on risk prevention as much as on repression.

The second is the respect for human rights, i.e., considering that the consumer is first and foremost a citizen with the same rights as everyone else rather than a criminal.

The third is pragmatism: any drug policy must take account of the fact that many citizens are also drug users and that not all of them are addicts. It is a question of balancing the need for public security with the objective of social cohesion, while avoiding sterile polarisation or the stigmatisation of users.

The fourth is that, alongside the need for greater cooperation at international and national level, the local level of governance plays a key role in preventing and combating trafficking and drug use and must be recognised and supported as such.

A call to the European Union

The Executive Committee of the European Forum for Urban Security is calling on the European Union to support this project with know-how and resources. Efus could draw on the EUDA to build the capacity of cities and their local partners, enabling them to better assess the prevalence of drugs in their areas and to be better prepared to deal with the crisis. In terms of resources, the project should be supported by the European Union through funds such as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and/or the European Social Fund (ESF). We also believe it would be appropriate to draw on the EU's crisis management resources: although these have been developed to deal with natural or industrial disasters, they could be very useful in responding to the drugs crisis in all its aspects (users, trafficking, violence, etc.).

Strengthening the rule of law

As we said earlier, cities are well placed to act as a bulwark not only against drug trafficking but also, more importantly, to strengthen democracy and the rule of law at a time when they are under increasingly open and, unfortunately, effective attacks from anti-democratic political forces that play on people's fears.