 Why is it important that we have a European Union drug strategy and action plan on top of the national action plan? Yeah, as you said a lot of the policies are developed on the national level But I think still there's a need for for EU-wide coordination Setting priorities and also for the EU to present their common values in international fora By the nature of the EU we're all connected to one another We move around drugs move around and drug-related harms move around and so The value of having a plan which looks across the EU Rather than looking specifically at those national contexts is to create a sense of shared responsibility and hopefully to make some shared progress Europe has a sort of balance between repression policy and social and health policy and I think that Europe can play an important role in reorienting Global drug policy without an European strategies. It would not be possible to play this role What do you think about the new EU action plan which was adopted last year? Can you highlight something which is important for you? What we are considering more useful for our advocacy work is the encouraging measures for vulnerable populations elderly populations and women especially it what it comes in reference to treatment recovery and rehabilitation also the importance of training health care professionals and Social care professionals and also the importance of having alternatives to corset extensions. It's much more progressive than most National action plans or drug action plans if they exist at all specific interventions are mentioned such as drug consumption rooms, naloxone distribution It's the first time that the European Union's action plan mentions drug consumption rooms What are your experiences in about drug consumption rooms in France? Yeah, I was very surprised to see that in the EU action plan. We experiment two drug consumption rooms one in Paris one in Strasbourg for now and it's It's great results. The only problem is that we don't have enough the new EU action plan on drugs Also cause member states to reduce overdoses. What do you think how this action is implemented in Spain? in Spain we are detecting that the Purity of cocaine is increasing some people state It is stating that probably they could have some overdoses and we think that with drug checking services We can address easily this problem because once user is informed about the purity of their products or of their drugs They can easily adapt their consume to this composition in the EU action plan for the first time they were stating about the importance of drug checking services and this is a really good new Quality standards. Can you explain us? What are quality standards and why why are they important? So quality standards are Supposed to help the professionals in the field to execute to implement the best possible Interventions they wouldn't be able to solve all the problems But that they but they will increase the the self-awareness of those who are who are implementing the interventions It will help the decision-makers to select the promising or really good quality interventions and Would help researchers because they will be able to have a clear framework in which they can check the outcomes The plan says that the civil society Organization must be involved in designing Implementing monitoring and evaluating policies and this is very Precisely, how would you convince politicians that it is important to involve civil society organizations? What's the benefit for them? We are at the forefront of all actions. We know drug users We know what kind of realities are on the street. We know which kind of problems and needs drug users have We know new trends. We know what happens every other groups are always Participating except when it's about drug users So I think and I'm very grateful that we're finally back in the civil society Of course, it's if you're not hurt and not seen how can you change and how can you do things for the people? We are working for What are the barriers to implement this action plan? How do you see the main barriers civil society organizations and policy makers are not aware of The EU drug action plan. They don't know that it exists And if they know it that it exists, they don't know the contents somehow the member states should be taken accountable for the implementation of the action plan Because at the moment there is no no one is accountable EMC DDA can be made accountable for data collection Commission can be made accountable for providing the necessary funds But member states cannot be taken accountable for anything if you look at the action plan as a whole and Then you look at the situation in Hungary Where do you see the biggest? Gaps how do you think those gaps could be breached? The EU action plan is speaking about broadening or reaching a whole coverage of different type of services We can say that we are in a very very bad situation And even though there is an EU action plan Related to broadening the the coverage of the services we can see that actually instead of being broadened they are narrowed and There is some misunderstanding in Hungary related to harm reduction because Unfortunately in Hungary it is a widely shared understanding that harm reduction would mean that we would promote drug use among drug users and we don't understand that the recovery Centered approach cannot be implemented without appropriate harm reduction services the other thing is that The Hungarian drug strategy is putting a very high emphasis on prevention activities and during the last Seven eight years. We don't see any substantial development in this regard Aras the Romanian anti-aids association is shutting down syringes exchange so these recurrent problems and Basically the state needs to take responsibility for its for its citizens There's a challenge to be flexible because You need to sort of to meet their needs Rather than the needs of the system because I think that there's a tendency that that you know the system Develops and exists for itself to some extent and not primarily for the users And I think that's a challenge particularly in feels like a drug treatment and substance use treatment many programs are not adapted to the beneficiaries needs for instance for Pringman women or women with dependent children or people that have mental health Problems elderly population. So that makes that either this population They don't access or they access a treatment and they drop out or in early stages what? Remains on the ground a major barrier for people who use drugs to access services and information is The over emphasis on drug law enforcement at the expense of health and human rights approaches Funding is a major issue and particularly if you look at some of those countries Which are in harm reduction funding crisis, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece If there isn't financing Services cannot be there and people cannot access them and the impact of this is or will be spikes in HIV infections HIV infections and other public health crises among people who use drugs within EU countries Do you see any practical opportunity to use the action planning advocacy? We're excited about the prospect of the action plan because in our financing harm reduction financing in the EU report One of the recommendations that we put forward for the European Union was where there are countries that are in harm reduction funding crisis And the government is not stepping up to fill the gap We argued that the EU should create a time-bond emergency fund so that in particular civil society Organisations in those countries could access funding and continue to provide life-saving services where the government is failing to do so We can certainly use the targets that are set in the action plan and the strategy in our advocacy work because we can we can hold them to their Promises and say this is actually a priority and this has been agreed and you should do something about it So I think that there's there is that potential at the regional Spanish regional level in, Catalonia We are using it as a backup document when in our demands to implement and develop Programs for elderly and women programs. So it's very useful. It would be nice that National governments would take advantage of it and use it copy-paste whatever They can do but to just use it and and put it into into practice I really hope that Europe remain the land of human rights welfare state and Research, I think that we must fight because Europe remain Maintain these political and cultural characteristics Thank you