These days many individuals and organizations across Europe are assessing how to start a European Citizens’ Initiative. But only a few of them have officially announced their European Citizens’ Initiative projects so far. Find below a preliminary overview of the first registered ECIs and further expected ECIs to come*. More…

Brussels – Starting on Sunday, April 1, 2012 the regulation to implement the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) will ultimately be applicable: a new tool created by the Lisbon Treaty which gives 1 million citizens the right to ask for changes to European law. According to Carsten Berg, ECI Campaign Director “We warmly welcome the introduction of the ECI. It is the first transnational instrument of participatory democracy in world history. With it, Europe enters a new territory of citizen participation. It is the result of nearly a decade of work which will open up new perspectives for democracy building in Europe.”  More…

Less than three weeks left until the launch of the first real European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECI) on April 1st all relevant stakeholders – citizens, institutions and media – are getting prepared for the start of the first transnational instrument of participatory democracy in world history. Please find an up-date on ECI related events, how to prepare an ECI Campaign and about some courageous citizens who are just about to run an ECI. 

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The next ECI-hearing in the European Parliament will be organized by Gerald Häfner and can be followed by the live-stream on Wednesday (12 May 2010) in the afternoon from 14h30 to 17h15.

As you know, the European Commission issued its draft regulations to implement the European Citizens Initiative (ECI) in late March. These regulations are currently being examined by the European Parliament and Council.

At this critical moment for the ECI, we strongly encourage you to contact your Member(s) of European Parliament (MEP), in your native language, to urge him or her to support more citizen-friendly ECI regulations.

• Key points for you to stress in your letters, e-mails and phone conversations with MEPs
• Contact information for all MEPs can be found on the European Parliament website www.europarl.europa.eu

Article 11, Paragraph 4 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU)

Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.
The procedures and conditions required for such a citizens’ initiative shall be determined in accordance with the first paragraph of Article 24 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Article 24 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)

The European Parliament and the Council, acting by means of regulations in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, shall adopt the provisions for the procedures and conditions required for a citizens’ initiative within the meaning of Article 11 of the Treaty on European Union, including the minimum number of Member States from which such citizens must come.

On February 16th 2011 Art 24 has been specified in a legislative act on the ECI.

Given the importance of the “European Citizens’ Initiative” introduced by the Lisbon Treaty, the Commission has opened a broad public consultation in order to seek the views of all interested parties on how the citizens’ initiative should work in practice.

The European Commission has invited respondents to the Green Paper to a Stakeholder Hearing, which will take place on 22nd February in Brussels.

• Programme
• The complete hearing is available here

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…

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…