One year after the launch of the ECI campaigners and ECI organizers agree: while the European Citizens’ Initiative is a great new tool of civic participation, its implementation is insufficient. One inadequacy of many concerning the current online collection software provided by the European Commission is the necessity to fill out a Captcha before singing an ECI. This test where the user has to enter a series of numbers and characters is supposed to limit automated signatures. Unfortunately the current implementation prevents More…

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) “Water is a human right” has reached an important milestone and is very likely to become the first ever successful ECI in history. Already by February 9, 2013 more than a million European citizens, the minimum number of signatories for a successful ECI, had supported the ECI “Water is a Human Right” (see our press release of Feb 9th). According to the organizers this ECI has now also hit the country quorum of at least seven Member States. More…

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This are good news for ECI Organizers and European citizens. Luxembourg, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Ireland have announced that they will reduce cumbersome data requirements for ECIs. The ECI Campaign has rallied strongly in recent years (see here, here and here) for such reforms in the ECI instrument, i.e., to simplify the signature form and eliminate ID requirements. More…

The ECI has been in use now for one entire year but its potential has not yet been unfolded. That is why we address our message to the Commission, Council and Parliament: Tear the walls down for participatory democracy and eliminate all the restrictions still inherent in the ECI instrument now. Here are the eight most important proposals for change which we have presented today directly to the Vice-President of the European Commission Maros Sefcovic: More…

75 Members of the European Parliament have asked the Commission and Council, through an official parliamentary question, to improve the ECI instrument. The ECI Campaign welcomes this initiative as many of our concerns have been addressed and integrated; however, by far not all. Special thanks go to all the ECI organizers who have given their valuable input to these questions. After a first written question by MEP Turmes (which we reported; see here), MEP Häfner has now submitted the following questions which are supported by a large group in the European Parliament from all the different parties. More…

As of April 1st the ECI has been in use for one year but its potential has not yet been unfolded. Here you find the ECI Briefing Package of the ECI Campaign and its partners as well as an analysis for the German speaking community by Carsten Berg, general coordinator of the ECI Campaign. 

Lessons and Successes of the “Right2Water” Initiative

The Right2water European Citizens’ Initiatives is a pioneer among the first more than 25 attempts to set the EU agenda. In early February this ECI hit the magic hurdle of one million statements of support. As those signatures must come from a transnational sample, the initiative continues. At the same time it offers an interesting showcase on the options and limits of the new tool.  Read the report by Carsten Berg. More…

On April 1st the ECI will have its first formal anniversary; this is a good time to evaluate the first experiences made with the new European Citizens’ Initiative right. We encourage you to put forward your own ideas about what needs to be changed. ECI activists in Luxembourg, for example, have encouraged their MEP Claude Turmes to put the questions below to the European Commission. We encourage you to ask your own MEP to do the same! More…

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), Europe’s first step toward participatory and direct democracy, is a new tool, created by the Lisbon Treaty, which gives 1 million citizens the right to ask for changes to European law. As of today the ECI ‘Water is a Human Right’, with more than 1 million collected signatures, is the first ECI in European history to have succeeded in collecting a minimum number of signatures. More…

The ECI, Europe’s first step toward participatory democracy, has been in place now for more than ten months, but the instrument’s usability is disputable. ECI organizers continue to report that the new instrument is not yet working as expected because the online infrastructure has not been sufficiently developed (see earlier posts here and here). Unfortunately, this has already led to a considerable loss of online signatures. More…