Brussels, 29/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - No April fool's joke but the first European citizens' initiative (ECI) is to be officially launched on Sunday 1 April (see EUROPE 10584), enshrining water as a human right. The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) and a broad range of European organisations (including the European Anti-Poverty Network and the European Environment Bureau) have gathered over one million signatures from citizens from at least seven member states, calling on the EU institutions to keep water and sanitation out of the rules governing the internal market, and to declare water and sanitation as a human right.
On 1 April, when this new participatory democratic instrument brought in by the Lisbon Treaty becomes legally operational, EPSU will therefore launch its ECI. It will not be until the next day (Monday 2 April), however, that EPSU will go before the Berlaymont building in Brussels to hand over a gigantic envelope to the European Commission.
A very first citizens' initiative on GM crops, organised by Greenpeace and Avaaz, had served as a trial run as it was handed to John Dalli, Health and Consumer Commissioner, in December 2010, even before the ECI regulation of application had been adopted - something that José Manuel Barroso, European Commission President, did not fail to point out at the time. With the petition, over one million citizens from 27 EU member states called for a moratorium on authorisations for further genetically modified crops as long as Europe does not have an independent scientific body able to correctly assess the risks entailed by such crops (see EUROPE 10230). Greenpeace considers that “their voices have been heard, since the Commission has yet to authorise new GM crops”.
Fastidious and over-restrictive measures. Greenpeace today considers that the ECI, as governed by the regulation for implementation which takes effect on 1 April, is a “useful tool” for encouraging Europeans to take part in the EU political process. It is flawed, however, because its rules are considered too restrictive to the point of discouraging participation, particularly by citizens. Greenpeace considers that it is more than sufficient to give the full name, complete address and nationality for valid verification of the signatory without having to give the date and place of birth, let alone passport or ID number, which is not only fastidious but also superfluous and could be risky for data protection reasons. “The citizens' initiative is a good idea in principle, but in reality one million euro will go a lot further to lobby the Commission than one million signatures. Data requirements for the citizens' initiative are far too restrictive, while lobbyists continue to have direct access without disclosing names and addresses, let alone their passport numbers”, observes Jorgo Riss, who heads the European Greenpeace office. (AN/transl.jl)