In December, Budapest gave place to C-EHRN’s Expert & Member Meeting, with more than 130 professionals gathering to discuss the key activities of the network!

To find out more about the event and C-EHRN’s key activities, watch the inspiring video by the Rights Reporter Foundation, and look at the summary of the event below.

On Monday the 4th, our focal points discussed the civil society monitoring of harm reduction in Europe process, ways to use the C-EHRN Monitoring data for advocacy purposes and getting familiar with a new data collection and visualisation tool for the C-EHRN monitoring activities. In the meantime, the partners of the Drug-Prep Project had insightful discussions on foresight research and other project activities.

A press conference also took place, introducing drug consumption rooms, drug checking in Europe and the example of Portugal’s health-based drug policy approach, sharing the message that “not only the richest countries in the world can implement efficient drug policies based on decriminalisation” (Marta Pinto, University of Porto). As a result, the conference gained coverage in RTL, one of Hungary’s most popular commercial TVs.

At the end of the day, some meeting participants visited Válaszút Misszió Drogkonzultációs Iroda, learning about their services and the Hungarian context.

Tuesday began with C-EHRN’s director, Katrin Schiffer, opening the official programme for all participants of the event, also introducing C-EHRN’s new visual identity which we launched with the event! During the plenary sessions, we discussed various topics including drug policy and harm reduction in Hungary, civil society monitoring and data collection, and some of the network’s main activities, including research on harm reduction in prison and harm reduction and gender.

Throughout the afternoon’s parallel sessions, we also talked about infectious diseases in community-based settings in the context of the BOOST project, while a migration workshop took place through the SEMID-EU project, and those interested could find out about the application of foresight research in the context of the drugs field (Drug-Prep project). In the following sessions, the civil society involvement case studies conducted in 4 European countries were discussed, while we also spoke about drug consumption rooms and mental health.

Wednesday’s parallel sessions gave space for an engaging conversation about C-EHRN’s strategy for 2024-2028, while drug checking and the state of harm reduction in five European cities (Amsterdam, Bălţi, London, Esch-sur-Alzette and Warsaw) were also discussed.

The Semid-EU plenary delved into the needs and (harm reduction) service access of marginalised migrants who use drugs in the EU, after which we reflected on the outcomes of the time spent together at the member & expert meeting.

To capture the event, we bring you a collection of images below.