According to the strategy, the European Commission wants to improve policies to combat not only drug use but also drug trafficking in the European Union (EU).

To this end, the European Commission wants to strengthen the capabilities of the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) to assist “Member States in identifying new psychoactive substances, issuing rapid alerts and assessing the danger posed by strong synthetic opioids,” according to the information released.

Ursula von der Leyen's executive branch wants to focus on prevention through campaigns organised and implemented by EUDA, based in Lisbon, which began operations on July 2, 2024, replacing the former European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.

Young people are the group that most concerns the European Commission; therefore, the strategy presented aims to create measures that not only protect minors from drug use, but also from recruitment by criminal groups to participate in production and trafficking.

Legislation

All of this will only be possible, the European executive warned, with the strengthening of legislation to combat drug trafficking, including the sanctions framework, in 2026.

Among the decisions that the European Commission wants to see approved next year is “public-private cooperation to improve the detection of drugs trafficked through postal and courier services” to the EU, as well as the EU port strategy, which was already presented in 2023, during the mandate of the previous European Commission, which was also headed by Ursula von der Leyen.

In this sense, the EU wants to focus on the idea of ​​cooperating with “third countries”, particularly in Latin America, where most of the drugs are produced to be trafficked to the 27 member states.

In coordination with Europol and Frontex (the EU agency that patrols land and sea borders), the European Commission wants countries to adapt to changes in the routes used by traffickers and to address – without specifying how, however – the scourge of narcotics transport using “fast vehicles,” i.e., speedboats and other similar vessels.

Europol gains more relevance in this strategy by being appointed by the European Commission as the link between the national authorities of each Member State, so that the response to drug trafficking is coordinated and there are no measures detached from the reality of the moment.