Today the dead-line for turning in ECI-proposals to the EU-Commission is over and several people and NGOs of you have contributed. Thank you very much for getting into the details and creating your own ideas! You can view all proposals here.

Based on many informal meetings with the responsible persons of the EU-Commission within the last weeks and based on the turned in written proposals by civil society organisations, we hope that the EU-Commission is getting a sense of understanding, that there actually still is a strong need to improve the proposals made by the EU-Commission in the Greenbook. Thus, let us undertake the next steps, in order to achieve a citizen-friendly design of the European Citizens’ Initiative, so that ECI will truly be an accessible and workable instrument for us as citizens. There still is a lot to do. More…

Carsten Berg, coordinator of the ECI-Campaign has made detailed proposals how the ECI should be designed, in order to be citizen-friendly and workable. You can find his proposal here.

This proposal was taken as the basic text for the European Parliament’s resolution from May 2009, see the link.

Mehr Demokratie was involved in the process which led to the inclusion of the
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) in the Constitutional Treaty/Reform Treaty and
welcomes the Commission’s efforts towards making the Initiative available to
citizens as soon as possible by means of a Regulation.

Based on our extensive practical experience with direct democracy, the organisation offers this response as a contribution to the hoped-for user-friendliness of
the ECI.

Read them here…

Yesterday, there was quite an interesting hearing within the European Parliament. Slovakia’s commissioner-designate, Maros Sefcovic, who will be responsible for ECI, was scrutinized by MEPs. Sefcovic received lots of questions about the remoteness of the EU from citizens. Gerald Häfner’s question, many of you might remember him from ECI-Campaign, was one of the first one on ECI. More…

The Treaty of Lisbon opens up the possibility for citizens to submit a proposal to the European Commission. At least one million EU citizens have to sign the initiative. But the wording of the article is quite open to interpretation. In our ECI-update from 23 November 2009, we present a first analysis of the Green Paper of the EU-Commission. Moreover check out the ten basic elements for a fair implementation, which are produced by an international group of experts and activists based on the best practice with citizens’ initiative rights in Europe. More…

In order to prepare the legislation which will make the ECI operational, the European Commission has now published a Green Paper. This action coincides with the launching of a public consultation process, which aims at seeking views of all interested individual citizens and organizations on how to design the implementation laws for the European Citizens Initiative.
In the third issue of ECI-News, the ECI campaign coordinator Carsten Berg informs in detail about the points being debated and the expectations being raised towards the European Commission by civil society organisations. Have a look…

It is now more than four years ago that the Swiss student Anna Zuber had the idea to start the "Initiative for the European Citizens’ Initiative". More than a hundred NGOs joined the campaign, thousands of people signed. The European Parliament has voted on the European Citizens Initiative – in favour. In a newsletter (dated 3 September 2009), Carsten Berg, the coordinator of the campaign, informs about the current situation and the challenges ahead. Have a look…

The signatures are the result of a Europe-wide campaign, involving organisations and initiatives in various countries. Most of the signatures are coming from the Netherlands, Poland, France, Belgium and Bulgaria.
ECI-signatures were accepted with great interest and respect by the Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament Diana Wallis (Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) Gerard Onesta (Group of European Greens / European Free Alliance) and the former Vice-President Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (Confederal Group of the European Left / Nordic Green Left), who have taken the ECI-signatures on behalf of the President of the European Parliament, Mr. Pöttering (Group of the European People’s Party / European Democrats). More…

In spite of all the changes which have taken place in Europe since the end of the Second World War, and which are leading – slowly but surely – towards a unified continent, people often remain completely unaware of the fundamental revolution that such a movement represents. We continue to ignore the radical nature of the new political thinking which accompanies this (r)evolution, and remain unable to clearly identify what we now take for granted, or what has really changed in our situation. More…