João Goulão unanimously reelected as EMCDDA chairman

Board re-elects unanimously Portuguese member João Goulão as EMCDDA Chairman and Belgian member Claude Gillard as Vice-Chairman.

João Goulão, Portuguese national drug coordinator and Head of the General-Directorate for Intervention on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies (SICAD), was re-elected Chairman of the EMCDDA Management Board today for a second three-year term.

Dr Goulão was first elected Chairman of the Board in December 2009. He has been the Portuguese representative on the Board since 2005 and previously served on the agency’s Scientific Committee (1997–2002). A
medical doctor by profession, Dr Goulão has over 20 years’ experience in preventing and treating drug addiction in Portugal, having steered a variety of national bodies in these fields. He was also a member of the Portuguese commission which proposed the current national drug strategy.

Claude Gillard (Belgium), a founding member of the agency, was also re-elected today to the position of Vice-Chairman. Mr Gillard, Legal counsellor at the Belgian Ministry of Justice, has chaired the EMCDDA Budget Committee since 2003 and has greatly facilitated the Board’s decisions on budgetary and financial matters.

Commenting on the results, EMCDDA Director Wolfgang Götz said: ‘I congratulate the Chair and Vice-Chair on their re-election and thank them for their hard work and cooperation throughout their first mandate.

I look forward to working with them in accomplishing the new EMCDDA strategy and work programme for 2013–15 and in navigating the agency successfully through these difficult economic times and in an increasingly challenging field‘.

Wolfgang Götz has been Director of the agency since May 2005, having been appointed by the Management Board on 19 April that year. In July 2009, the Board renewed his mandate unanimously for a further five-year term from 1 May 2010 to 1 May 2015.

The Management Board is the EMCDDA’s main decision-making body which meets twice a year in Lisbon. The Board consists of one representative from each EU Member State and Norway, two European Commission representatives and two independent experts in the drugs field designated by the European Parliament.

At its two-day meeting in Lisbon this week (6–7 December), the Board gave its final seal of approval on the agency’s 2013 budget and work programme. Discussions also covered cooperation between the agency and Israel and procedures for the selection and appointment of the 15 members of the EMCDDA Scientific Committee for the period 2014–16. A call for expression of interest in membership of the Committee will be launched on the EMCDDA website early in 2013.

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