Appel à candidatures pour devenir membre du Forum Européen de la Société Civile sur la Drogue

La Direction Générale de la Justice (DG Justice) de la Commission européenne invite les ONG et les réseaux à déposer leurs candidatures auprès du Forum Européen de la Société Civile sur la Drogue. La date limite pour la soumission des demandes est le 4 janvier 2013. Más información, en inglés, está disponible abajo.

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The Directorate General for Justice (DG Justice) of the European Commission invites non- governmental organisations and networks to apply for membership of the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs (CSF) 2013-2014.

The involvement of civil society is one of the cornerstones of European drugs policy as presented in the Commission's Green Paper of 26 June 2006 on the role of civil society in drugs policy in the European Union1 .

The CSF is a broad platform for a structured dialogue between the Commission and the European civil society which supports policy formulation and implementation through practical advice.

The outgoing CSF (2011-2012) has 35 members, representing different stakeholders and different policy options. The forum is chaired by the Commission, which finances and organises its meetings and ensures continuity of its work. A "core group", composed of 6 members is contributing to the preparation of documents, agendas of the meetings and animates discussions and coordinates the work of members, also in between the meetings. The CSF meets once a year and the membership is biannual. The working language is English. No translation is provided during the plenary meetings.

For more information about the CSF, its members and minutes of the meetings, please click here.

The first CSF was created in 2007. As stated in the Green Paper mentioned above and in order to give opportunities to new organisations to join the CSF, the Commission is opening the membership of the Forum to new organisations complying with the following criteria:

• The organisation has to correspond to the concept of civil society as set out in point 2 of the above mentioned Green Paper: “the associational life operating in the space between the state and market, including individual participation, and the activities of non-governmental, voluntary and community organisations”.
• The organisation must be legal, be registered and have its main base of operation in an EU member state, EEA, acceding, candidate or potential candidate country2.
• Membership of those organisations must be open to those that fulfil transparent criteria and organisations must be financially accountable.
• The organisation has to have drug related activities as the core focus of its activities. Organisations covering directly different aspects (e.g. treatment, prevention) could be selected to ensure broad coverage of the drugs issue.
• Credibility: Organisations should have a clear track record of their activities.
• Representativeness: Organisations should be recognised as being able to speak on behalf of those they claim to represent.

Based on these criteria, the Commission will select members (between 35-40) for the forum after analysing the information provided in the annexed application form. The following principles will be taken into consideration:

• Priority will be given to those organisations that are established in the form of transnational networks covering a number of eligible countries.
• A geographical balance shall be reached.
• Balance between different areas of activities in the drugs field shall be ensured.
• The organisation should be able to contribute to the policy developments on a European level and this should be demonstrated by their activities, for example at national level.
• The membership needs to be limited for the Forum to be manageable and operational.

The organisations that are members of the Forum are expected to provide active input to the work of the Forum, also when appropriate in between the plenary meetings. They are also expected to act as 'focal points' to keep other relevant organisations in their respective countries abreast of the activities of the Forum and involve them in the Forum's work by sharing relevant information.

The organisations that are members of the outgoing CSF (2011-2012) that would like to remain members should reapply by sending the filled in application form. Those organisations do not need to send supporting documents that they already provided during the previous selection procedure if:

• They comply with the new selection criteria as stated above.
• Since the previous call for membership, there have been no changes in the organisation's structure, scope of activities and financing model, which could potentially be contrary to the selection criteria.

In case one or both of the conditions listed above are not met, the new application will have to be completed with all the supporting documents.

Lack of an application as mentioned above will be understood as a wish to end the membership in the CSF.
The application forms should be transmitted (preferably by e-mail) to just-drugspolicy@ec.europa.eu or to the postal address:

European Commission
Directorate General Justice
Unit B3 Anti-drugs policy Unit
MO59 – 1049 Brussels, Belgium

The deadline for submitting applications and supporting documents is 4 January 2013.

The Commission will evaluate the applications received and will publish the list of selected organisations on the DG Justice website. The Commission will also inform new organisations of the outcome of the selection process by e-mail.

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