Eight countries within the Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia (ECECA) region – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, and Serbia in the Western Balkans, as well as Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine – have been granted candidate status to European Union (EU) membership. It is expected that some of these countries may join the Union by 2030.

To enter the EU, candidate countries must demonstrate the capacity to implement the rules, standards and policies that make up the body of EU law (the acquis communautaire or simply the EU acquis). A significant part of the EU acquis concerns drug policy. It comprises a set of obligations, policy commitments, and best practices that take an evidence-based, integrated, balanced and multidisciplinary approach to drugs, and uphold the founding values of the EU: respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, solidarity, the rule of law and human rights.

For a region characterized by slow progress towards drug policies that prioritize health, accession to the EU requires  a paradigm change towards a balanced, health and human rights-based approach.

This position paper identifies the key elements of the EU acquis on drug policy from a health and human rights perspective. Through a detailed analysis of accession negotiations as currently executed, it assesses whether EU enlargement is now being leveraged to move national drug policies towards this new paradigm.

The conclusions are both hopeful and sobering. On the one hand, the EU acquis on drug-related matters clearly requires a shift towards more effective and health-based drug policies in the ECECA region. On the other hand, the current approach to drug policy in accession negotiations must gain in balance and ambition if that requirement is to be met. At the moment, both candidate countries and the EU focus on a narrow set of technical interventions that do not appropriately integrate the public health and human rights dimension of the EU acquis.

The paper concludes with recommendations on what concrete next steps should be taken by candidate countries and EU institutions to ensure that accession leads to effective and health-based drug policies in the ECECA region.