The new agency will, according to a statement, play a key role in the EU's response to the new health and safety challenges posed by illicit drugs.

The main tasks of the new agency will be “the collection, monitoring, analysis and dissemination of data, improving preparedness through early warning and risk assessment and recommendations for action based on evidence, as well as developing skills to anticipate and combat drug-related challenges”.

The new structure will also have a reinforced role, compared to that of the observatory, in international cooperation, both with organizations and with third countries.

The observatory, created in 1993 and based in Lisbon, aims to provide the EU and its Member States with factual and comparable information on drugs, drug addiction and their consequences, in order to inform their policy-making and guide initiatives fight against drugs, competences that are now transferred to the agency.