BRUSSELS, 29 March 2011 – Whether by accident or design but probably not following advice from public relations advisors, the EU has chosen 1 April 2012 as the date of entry into force of the regulation on European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECI). Preparatory work is still necessary for the design of a European open source system for collecting signatures and for member states to set up systems for checking and validating initiatives. Anyone considering collecting 1 million signatures to present an April fool’s joke should however probably think again, since initiatives which are manifestly frivolous will be rejected.
ECIs are a serious business: the first ever instrument of transnational participatory democracy, giving citizens an agenda setting right equal to that of the European Parliament and which could finally help bridging the gap between the EU and its citizens.
The ECI has its legal basis in article 11 (4) of the Treaty of Lisbon, which states that “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 for launching an initiative are set out in the ECI regulation 211/2011.
Why then launch the hotline one year before the entry into force of the regulation? The main reason is to alert organisers which want to be first with the launch of their initiative on 1 April 2012 and the collection of signatures that they would be well advised to start now. That is the main concern that emerged from the conclusions and contributions to a conference of 17 March which brought together key protagonists in the legislative process, experts and organisers of initiatives. What was the verdict? The jury is still out between the pessimists and optimists. It was pointed out for example that the European Parliament did negotiate improvements, so that the regulation is much more citizen-friendly, but the resulting document remains a compromise. Most experts regard 12 months as too short a time to mount a European campaign and gather signatures, so they advise to start the preparations well ahead of schedule.
The hotline, available through the email address ecihotline@ecas.org, is there to help with legal advice, practical ideas and contacts for the European campaign and compliance issues.
To build a supportive infrastructure round initiatives which should not just come from powerful lobbies, official assistance can only go so far: there is also a need for a multi-disciplinary civil society helpdesk, which ECAS believes is a task beyond the capacities of one organisation and which should bring together a wide range of expertise. As part of our ambitious aim to create a European civil society house, we hope to bring organisations together to create such a helpdesk.