Brussels, 26/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 26 January at a conference that brought together more than 4000 people, including members of civil society and representatives from social networks, the commissioner for administration and inter-institutional relations, Maros Sefcovic, officially launched the Commission website for registering proposals in the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) and presented the free software and systems that could be used for collecting online signatures.
Although the Commission appears ready, this is not the case with the member states. The commissioner emphasised that the Commission had done its work in developing this important tool and it was now up to member states to do likewise. According to the commissioner a third of member states had still not put the necessary infrastructure in place, such as an appropriate national authority that would certify the declarations of support. He added that only a few had put in place the necessary measures. The Commission and the Danish Presidency will therefore be calling on member states to speed up this process, so that everything is ready in April, explained Sefcovic.
Nicolai Wammen, the Danish minister for European affairs, said that the credibility of the initiative depends on this preparedness and that they needed to show that they were taking this initiative seriously. He added that the Danish Presidency would be urging all member states to be ready and that they had to tell citizens that they were prepared to listen to them in order to change Europe into a better Europe and to make it more democratic.
The European Citizens' Initiative website is accessible at the following address: Ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative. (CG/transl.fl)