Eurazijos zalos mazinimo asociacija/ Eurasian harm reduction association
EHRA
Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) is a non-for-profit public membership-based organization, registered by the initiative of harm reduction activists and organizations from Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) on 2nd March 2017.
ID: 932938331141-28
Lobbying Activity
Response to EU Drugs Strategy and European Action Plan Against Drug Trafficking
25 Sept 2025
We in the EHRA believe the next EU Drug Strategy must reaffirm the EUs role as a global leader in health- and rights-based drug policies. In recent years, civic space has shrunk while punitive approaches resurged, undermining human rights, gender equality and public health. To remain credible, the EU must commit to balanced, evidence-based, and community-led approaches. This will also ensure that candidate countries (Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Western Balkans) adopt the same human rights-based policies in the enlargement process. Here are key recommendations: 1. Ensure a balanced approach beyond supply reduction The Strategy remains overly focused on supply control, despite evidence that punitive measures fail and fuel violence and abuses. - Develop Action Plans covering all pillars: demand reduction, harm reduction, international cooperation. - Allocate resources equitably, prioritising health responses and community safety. 2. Protect and expand civic space Civil society and communities face restrictive laws, defunding, and harassment, undermining EU values. - Explicitly recognise civil society as essential partners in planning, implementing and monitoring country and EU actions. - Safeguard participation through legal protections, transparent processes, and fair funding. - Condemn foreign influence laws and bans on drug propaganda that silence NGOs in providing life saving information to people who use drugs and in advocacy. 3. Guarantee sustainable funding for health and rights Harm reduction often depends on fragile, short-term projects. - Ensure international and domestic funding for NGOs, especially in health response. - Strengthen EU funding for community-led interventions. - Shield health responses from political cuts and interference. 4. Prioritise harm reduction and the right to health Harm reduction is effective and rights-based, but coverage is insufficient. - Develop an Action Plan with measurable indicators for health response. - Expand and fund services: safe consumption rooms, take-home naloxone, harm reduction in prison. - Integrate harm reduction into broader socio-medical care and mental health systems, ensuring continuity during crises or displacement. - Address vulnerabilities including homelessness, gender-based violence, and migration. 5. Empower communities and people with lived experience - Policies are stronger when shaped by affected communities, yet they face underfunding and harassment. - Support community-led monitoring, advocacy, and service delivery. - Fund, protect, and recognise leaders with lived experience, especially young people, women, and LGBTIQ. - Prevent criminalisation of community representatives. 6. Reinforce evidence- and rights-based approaches The Strategy must anchor itself in human rights and public health. - Reaffirm commitment to UN System Common Position, International Guidelines, and OHCHR reports. - Align with the Sustainable Development Goals. - Mainstream gender equality and non-discrimination. 7. Enable innovation and reform Punitive drug policies have failed; reforms are underway in several EU states. - Recognise and support national reforms such as decriminalisation and regulation. - Provide EU-level frameworks evaluating health and social outcomes. - Encourage responsible regulation aligned with UN guidance. 8. Strengthen EU global leadership The EU has historically promoted progressive drug policy at the UN this must continue. Maintain a unified EU stance grounded in health and rights. -Base actions on UNGASS Outcome Document, International Guidelines on Human Rights and Drug Policy. Ensure civil society is meaningfully consulted in shaping EU positions. Conclusion The EU has the chance to set a global standard for balanced, humane, and effective drug policies. This requires rejecting punitive models, protecting civic space, investing in harm reduction and integrated health responses, and ensuring communities most affected are central to decision-making.
Read full responseResponse to EU Civil Society Strategy
5 Sept 2025
Over the last years an increasing number of governments in Central Eastern Europe & Central Asia (CEECA) are adopting new laws and practices that constrain civic space (restricting rights and liberties of civil society), thereby exerting additional pressures and burden on already criminalized populations (LGBTQI+, people living with HIV, people who use drugs, sex workers). Russia's war against Ukraine has intensified the negative human rights trends of previous years, leading to increased insecurity. It caused disruption of access to treatment and basic medical and social services, increased vulnerabilities to HIV in Ukraine, and in countries affected by the refugee crisis, and throughout the region, where economic and social upheaval and changing patterns of migration are felt. The confluence of geopolitical turmoil, rising authoritarianism and the resulting shrinking spaces for civil society, criminalization of key populations and donors narrow view and scope in addressing HIV brought us to this boiling point where, more than ever the robust and pragmatic approaches in addressing interconnected issues of HIV, public health, gender equality, civil and human rights are needed. The EU Civil Society Strategy need to respond to shrinking civic space: acknowledge and coordinate efforts among communities, civil society, governments, academic institutions and professionals to address the shrinking space for civil society and communities to act in the spheres related to public health, sustainability and security in the CEECA region (EU member states, candidate and neighboring countries). Civil society and community groups play an essential role in pushing for evidence-based and human rights-based policies and practices, and can mobilize to provide services when state services fall short of it or alienate stigmatized, discriminated-against and criminalized people. We urge the EU in the Civil Society Strategy to: 1. Acknowledge the issue of shrinking space for the civil society in the CEECA region as a key challenge in public health and social care interventions and the need for action to safeguard civic spaces. 2. Ensure sustainability of low threshold, comprehensive community-led responses through flexible funding in order to adequately respond to current complex and intertwined issues in the CEECA region. In reaction to the new reality of repressions against particular communities and civil society at large (e.g. laws against so-called gay propaganda, drug propaganda, foreign agents, undesirable organizations), special attention should be paid to ensuring the safety and security of civil society and community workers and activists. 3. Acknowledging that HIV or any other disease response does not occur in a vacuum and is exacerbated by other interrelated issues, ensure that advocacy and funding approaches are focused on inclusion of a broad range of stakeholders for a coordinated, intersectional and holistic response. 4. Support communities in addressing issues of criminalization communities of people living with HIV, people using drugs, LGBTQI+, and sex workers face discrimination and criminalization of different aspects of their lives in CEECA countries. 5.Take leadership and coordinate efforts among the international community, development agencies, donor governments and private philanthropies to ensure meaningful dialogue in CEECA countries around the importance of sustainability of services, community leadership in all areas concerning their lives and livelihoods, decriminalization as a pivotal aspect of human rights and ensuring space for civil society. See analysis here: https://harmreductioneurasia.org/news/mapping-repressions
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