It is an honour to speak here in front of such a distinguished audience.

I am speaking to you today as a Member of the European Parliament and, in particular, as the British Conservatives' Spokesman on Overseas Development and International Co-operation.

"International Co-operation" is already mentioned in the title of our session this morning, and I believe it plays, together with a comprehensive Overseas Development Policy, a vital role in "The Fight against Crime", particularly when it comes to the International Drugs Trade, which is the subject I am going to focus on today.

Drugs are a menace for our societies. According to estimations by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the number of drug addicts in the EU is between two and ten addicts per 1,000 population (aged 15-54), varying between the Member States. These figures do not even include drugs such as amphetamines and cocaine nor do they include the users who are not strictly dependent (addicted) but who regularly use illegal drugs in sufficient amounts to be at high risk of experiencing serious problems. Otherwise, the number would be considerably higher. The total number of heroin addicts in the EU is estimated to be about 1 million.

The drug problem costs the European Union an absolute fortune. The amount of revenue spent by Member State police forces, custom services and anti drug squads to control the heroin imports and use alone add up to almost 4 billion Euro per year (according to recent figures by the EMCDDA).

The number of arrests for drug law offences throughout the EU is around 700,000 per year. 60,000 people are imprisoned every year for drug offences, leading to annual custodial costs of 1.5 billion Euro.

So how do we solve the drug problem? Through more policing, higher sentences for drug traffickers, and the eradication of illicit crops in the producer countries? That alone won't work, I'm afraid, as seen in the last 25 years.

What we need is a more comprehensive approach to solving the problem - an "Alternative Development" approach, which integrates the EU' drug policy into its Development Policy, while taking into account the economic, social and political aspects of illicit drug production in developing countries, particularly across Asia and Latin America.

Why? Because an estimated four million people throughout the developing world depend on income derived from the cultivation of illicit drug crops such as coca bush and opium poppy. Without offering them economically viable and sustainable means of earning an income, they will not stop producing these crops, and drugs will continue to flood our societies, kill our children and lead to billions and billions of Euro worth of resulting costs.

The total value of the poppy crop at the farm gate in Afghanistan, where I was recently, was estimated at EUR 750,000,000. Its heroin street value is estimated at EUR 12.5 billion. Thus while the growers get less than 7% of the street value, over EUR 11 billion is accrued by those who really ought to be in jail for the serious crimes of drug trafficking - rather than enjoying the spoils of their murderous trade which has ruined millions of lives in the past 50 years.

Therefore is it not far better to stop this trade at the point of growing rather than at the point of consumption or distribution? This is a no-brainer! If we do this we will save EUR 4 billion in policing costs and 1.5 billion in custodial costs; not forgetting the lives of those millions who rather than being a burden on society would have been contributors to our societies.

Therefore I am now in the process of producing legislation in the European Parliament which will promote alternative development where assistance will be provided to farmers to grow cash crops other than those that are used to produce drugs.

While governments and international agencies in the past attempted to eliminate cultivation of illicit crops by focusing on law enforcement, crop destruction or crop substitution projects, a more comprehensive means to solving the problem should be applied: an "alternative development" approach that provides real hope for better lives in drug-producing areas, which takes into account the economic, social, political and legal aspects of illicit drug production and restores and sustains livelihoods and social stability.

New income-earning opportunities for the poor will have to be created, mainly by assisting with the production of legal cash crops, such as coffee, raisins and other fruits, but also by assisting communities in establishing local institutions for processing, transporting and selling crops to make sure livelihoods are sustainable after outside development assistance ends.

The key is community involvement, i.e. farmers associations and other organizations that are committed to the production of legal crops and are powerful enough to resist pressure from drug traffickers to participate in the underground economy.

Assistance is particularly needed with regard to:

• agricultural extension and other advice to help farmers produce alternative crops
• support in identifying crops that are in demand by international and local consumers
• technical assistance in starting up crop-processing facilities
• assistance in establishing credit systems that enable farmer associations to grow, process, market and transport crops
• instruction in business management and accounting
• guidance in packaging and marketing goods assistance in achieving other rural-development objectives identified by the community, such as building schools and roads and constructing water supply and sewer systems.

This transition from poppy growing to fruit and raisin growing, we propose to manage, as we now do under the CAP for Greek tobacco, which we buy and burn. A similar exercise could be done for the poppy crop in Afghanistan, provided we immediately implement what I call the "Alternative Development" approach. In order to succeed in this we need the corporation of the Central and Eastern European States and the International Community to strictly maintain, while the transition is being managed, border controls to stop drug dealers from pushing up the price they would offer the farmers for the current crop; by making it more difficult for them to transport it across the borders. So the crucial period to stop it at the source is to have tighter controls at the borders during the transition period.

That is why I want to congratulate you on this absolutely timely conference where we are all working together to eradicate this blight from the lives of our people.