I will try to list the most important problems with the European citizens’ initiative. Note that the European Commission put all ECIs in a stand by modus for the moment because of problems with the online signature collection system and tries to find solutions together with the ECI organisers.
- most member states (all but IRE, UK, NL, B, D, DK, SL, EST, FIN) require a personal identification n ➔
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I will try to list the most important problems with the European citizens’ initiative. Note that the European Commission put all ECIs in a stand by modus for the moment because of problems with the online signature collection system and tries to find solutions together with the ECI organisers.
- most member states (all but IRE, UK, NL, B, D, DK, SL, EST, FIN) require a personal identification number (such as passport number) when signing an ECI. The ECI can be compared to a petition, not to a voting right or decision making right with direct impact. Would you give your ID number before going to a demonstration in the street? No? So why should you do so when signing an ECI?
- who can sign?: all those who can vote for European Parliament elections have the right to sign an ECI. This is ruled by 27 national laws what leads to inequality between citizens in the EU. In Austria for example the age of 16 years is enough!
- having only 12 months for collecting signatures in at least 1/4 of the member states (7 for the moment) and with quite high minimum quota per member state is few. Especially considering the efforts of translation and the lack of enough European media for a where debate on the ECI could take place.
- 1st of April 2012 - 1st of July 2012... three months and non of the ECIs registered by the European Commission started collecting signatures. It is very difficult to install the software the Commission provided and to do the complementary developments necessary to get the system certificated. Currently, a “stand by situation” has been pronounced by the Commission. The Commission is in close dialog with the ECI organisers to find solutions.
- eligibility of ECIs: ECIs that want to change primary law of the EU are not recognised by the European Commission. What if citizens want to change or develop further the founding treaties of the EU? We do not have our say on this today?
- the national authorities responsible for the ECI are not always trained to answer questions on the ECI. The first ECIs in each member state will show if there are problems or not in a specific member state or not.
- there is no central “help-desk” existing for the moment. Some civil society organisations provide help, support, training and try to back up ECI organisers but this is limited and one can doubt about a rapid and sufficient training of persons working in national contact points to support (potential) ECI organisers.
running an ECI is expensive. Getting the online collection system run is expensive and further costs occur.
Even if some of the hurdles of the draft regulation from the European Commission for the ECI (2009) have been reduced or changed in more citizen-friendly tool, one has to be really motivated to launch and succeed an ECI process. That is not what will convince citizens of a participative, and democratic access to the EU.
Those who lobbied for a more citizen-friendly ECI continue working on it and try to ameliorate the current state of the art.