Italy and France, co-founders of the European Coalition Against Drugs (ECAD), on Thursday announced an international meeting on prevention and addiction recovery. The summit will be held on 23 October 2026 in Italy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French President Emmanuel Macron have announced an international meeting on the prevention of and recovery from addictions.
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Italy and France are co-founders of the European Coalition against Addictions (ECAD), set up on the sidelines of the summit of the European Political Community (EPC) on 2 October 2025. Thirty-five countries have joined ECAD, committing to combating drug trafficking and supporting prevention and recovery from addictions.
The summit will be held at the San Patrignano recovery community (source in Italian), near Rimini, on 23 October 2026, and will bring together ministers, officials and representatives of international organisations with the aim of sharing best practices in prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and social reintegration for people with addictions, with a particular focus on young people.
Responsibility for organising the initiative has been entrusted to Undersecretary to the Prime Minister's Office Alfredo Mantovano, who will coordinate several ministries.
At the end of the meeting, a final document setting out the Coalition’s guidelines and operational commitments for the coming years will be drafted and adopted, in an effort to meet the goals agreed at the second ECAD meeting in Yerevan, where the member states signed a new joint declaration.
Meloni and Macron have already sent joint invitation letters to 47 delegations, including heads of state and government, the other partners in the coalition and the relevant European institutions.
San Patrignano as a model
"Choosing San Patrignano aims to showcase, in the tangible reality of everyday life, a leading experience in the recovery and reintegration of people with addictions: an example of the policies the Coalition intends to promote, with a view to strengthening the response to a challenge that demands responsibility and shared effort," reads the government website promoting the initiative.
San Patrignano is a well-known social cooperative in Italy which has been welcoming young people with addictions since 1978, offering them a free recovery programme, rehabilitative and educational in nature and non-pharmacological.
Since it was founded, the facility has provided support to more than 26,000 people and, according to sociological and toxicological studies carried out by the universities of Bologna, Urbino and Pavia, the percentage of people described as "fully recovered" among those who have completed the programme exceeds 72%.
Every programme is tailored to the individual and may also include psychotherapeutic interventions, but it is based on a number of core values: life in a shared community and training. For this reason, the community offers more than 20 different sectors in which young people can specialise, with 50 possible training activities.
In June 2026, to mark the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella visited the facility, which currently hosts around 1,000 people.
"The recovery and rediscovery of life and a future for so many young people, made possible by the work carried out by communities, organisations and the many volunteers involved, is a resource that enriches our country," Mattarella said during the ceremony, which was also attended by Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano.
"Data from the latest report to parliament remain a cause for concern: one in four young people aged between 15 and 19 say they have used drugs at least once in the past year," the Undersecretary said.
"Every day, in public services, in therapeutic communities and in scientific societies, tireless women and men sometimes put their own safety at risk to ensure that those who have fallen into addiction can follow the most appropriate recovery path to the very end," Mantovano stressed, referring to the role of communities such as San Patrignano in preventing and treating addictions.
