The report adopted on Wednesday 20 June by the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee (AFCO) on reform of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) does not meet the demands of ECI organisers.
The ECI was set up by the Lisbon Treaty to make it possible for at least one million of EU citizens to ‘invite’ the European Commission to unveil legislative proposals on a subject over which the EU has power.
The instrument has not achieved the expected results and is the subject of a planned reform by the European Commission that ECI organisers find disappointing. On 10 April, several of them slammed the Commission’s preponderant role in the procedure, in which it reserves the right to select and take (or not take) follow-up measures for citizens’ initiatives that reach the one million signature mark (see EUROPE 11999). On 8 June, 16 ECI organisers and 51 civil society organisations signed an open letter calling for MEPs to ‘fully commit’ to ECIs. They mostly demand that each ECI reaching the required number of signatures to be automatically part of a discussion and a vote at Parliament’s plenary before being examined by the Commission.
The proposals presented by the Greens/EFA group was blocked by a majority comprising MEPs from the EPP, S&D and ALDE group. Pascal Durand (Greens/EFA, France), coordinator for his group for the AFCO committee, said the majority had refused to give the democratic tool political impact needed to force European institutions to give a legislative follow-up to citizen proposals. The group will try to find a new majority on the text in the July plenary.
Satisfaction for the EPP group
At the moment, the text adopted by the committee offers organisers the option of starting to collect signatures over a six-month period (rather than three in the Commissar’s proposal), and two months to decide whether to amend or partially register an initiative that goes beyond EU powers (one month in the initial proposal).
The compromise voted through by AFCO tends to devote some of the budget to supporting ACI organisers and the authorities to use regional languages to promote and disseminate ECIs and collect signatures.
Under the compromise, the European Commission is finally assumed to take follow-up measures in the months after publication of an ECI and to justify any decision not to follow up the ECI in a ‘clear, understandable and detailed manner.’ Parliament reserves the possibility (already foreseen in the texts) to debate follow-up measures and issue resolutions in the event of failure by the Commission to take action.
‘This new regulation will make the procedure more fluid and effective,’ says György Schöpflin (EPP, Hungary), rapporteur for the text. (Original version in French by Mathieu Solal, stage)