Following the announcement of the consultation procedure by the EU, the government dispatched several missions to urge the EU to avoid taking harsh measures against Guinea-Bissau. A mission led by the foreign minister, Adelino Mano Queta, was sent to several European capitals, while the prime minister, Carlos Gomes Júnior, undertook a three-day-long visit to the capital of neighbouring Senegal, Dakar, where he met with European diplomats. Mr Gomes Júnior reiterated his country's determination to fight drug-trafficking and said that he was willing to co-operate with Interpol and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Mr Gomes Júnior also attended a UN Security Council meeting in late February in order to dissuade the international community from imposing sanctions. During the meeting, the UN secretary-general's special representative in Guinea-Bissau, Joseph Mutaboba, called on the government to allow foreign investigators to patrol the country's territorial waters in conjunction with the Bissau-Guinean police.

In an attempt to demonstrate its determination to combat drug-trafficking, the government has made a number of announcements and followed up with a series of high-visibility steps. A cabinet statement released in early January confirmed that the government would close the Cufar airstrip, situated 300 km to the south of the capital, Bissau, and allegedly used by drug-traffickers. Mr Gomes Júnior also instructed the ministries of defence and of the interior to heighten vigilance on all airstrips around the country. An anti-narcotics agency has been created, with police, migration services, borders and customs staff. The agency, which was established following an agreement signed between the ministries of justice, finance and the interior, forms part of a commitment by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to fight drug-trafficking and organised crime in the region and is the result of co-operation and partnership between the governments of Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia, with the support of UNODC and the EU. Finally, the police publicly burnt 76 kg of cocaine and 800 kg of cannabis in February in front of the justice minister, Mamadu Djalo Pires, and the public prosecutor, Amine Michel Saad. However, Mr Saad commented critically on the country's anti-drug-trafficking strategy a few days later, emphasising its lack of coherence. The public prosecutor noted that it was necessary to define each body's areas of intervention and competence and warned that any civilian or military entities that seized drugs and refused to give them to the police would be considered to be drug dealers and therefore prosecuted as such. Major drug seizures in Guinea-Bissau have indeed "disappeared" in the past, notably in 2007, when 674 kg of cocaine seized during a drug raid in September 2006 subsequently vanished from a safe in the national Treasury (July 2007, The political scene).