During the work of the Convention preparing the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, the representative of the Bundestag, Jürgen Meyer, proposed to create a right of popular initiative. The idea, which draws its inspiration from a number of examples (Switzerland, Italy, California, etc.), won the backing of several NGOs and around 40 members of the Convention, including its President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. It was adopted at the Convention’s final plenary assembly and was set out in article I-47 of the treaty, under the heading of participative democracy. The aim is to collect signatures in favour of a project, not with a view to holding a referendum, but to invite the European Commission at least to adopt a legislative proposal.
The text was included in the Lisbon treaty (art. 11 § 4 TEU and art. 24 TFEU). The Regulation on the European citizens’ initiative (ECI) was adopted by the Parliament and the Council on 16 February 2011 (see EUROPE 10315/7) and entered into force on 1 April 2012. The Commission chose 9 May, Europe Day, to launch the new initiative: this gave the inauguration procedure for these new powers for EU citizens a degree of ceremony. As the treaty entered into force on 1 December 2009, it is worth noting that the EU citizens had to wait two years and five months for their new powers.
How does it work? You have to set up a committee of at least seven citizens of voting age residing in seven different member states. This committee drafts a proposal, explaining the rationale behind it, and submits it to the Commission to be registered; if accepted, the collection of signatures may begin, electronically or on paper. You then have one year to collect a million signatures, with a minimum number (which varies on the basis of population size) in at least seven member states. Signatories must be EU citizens old enough to vote in the European Parliament elections.
If the million signatures are achieved within the required timeframe, the next three months are given over to authenticating the declarations of support. The committee then presents its initiative to the Commission. Another three months are then devoted to an examination of the proposal, a hearing at the EP and the Commission’s official response. The Commission may choose to make a legislative proposal, or decide not to, but it must substantiate its decision. A special Commission portal contains all the information on the procedures (see: http://bit.ly/2Hi2TJs ).
European civil society went into a ferment to make a success of this new entitlement. Three ECIs were registered in the spring of 2012: the first one to reach the million signatures mark (10 February 2013) concerns water as a right (‘Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!’) (see EUROPE 11020/21). The second, concerning the protection of embryos (‘One of us’), received the highest number of signatures (1 November 2013) (see EUROPE 11090/18). The third, on animal protection (‘Stop vivisection’), also hit 1 million in 2013 (see EUROPE 11267/34).
Between May 2012 and October 2014, however, around 20 other initiatives were denied authorisation to be registered. This made the ‘Barroso II’ Commission look like a ‘serial killer’ in the eyes of citizens’ organisations. The explanations given were that the projects ran counter to the values of the EU or fell outside the remit of the Commission.
Another of organisers’ committees complained – successfully – to the Court of Justice. The ECI entitled ‘Minority Safepack – One million signatures for diversity in Europe’, for instance, was refused registration on 13 September 2013, but in a judgment dated 3 February 2017, the General Court overturned that decision (see EUROPE 11718/18); the Commission published its decision to register it on 29 March of that year (see EUROPE 11757/13). The ECI ‘Stop TTIP’, which urged the Commission to make a recommendation to the Council of the EU to rescind the negotiation mandate for an EU/US re-trade agreement (TTIP) and not to conclude the EU/Canada free-trade agreement (CETA) was knocked back on 10 September 2014; the General Court of the EU overturned the decision on 10 May 2017 (see EUROPE 11785/15); the Commission bowed to this judgment, registering it on 4 July 2017 (see EUROPE 11822/15). The ECI ‘Cohesion policy for the equality of the regions and sustainability of the regional cultures’ was rejected on 25 July 2013 in a decision that was initially upheld by the General Court in 2016, but then cancelled by the Court on 7 March 2019 (see EUROPE 12209/22).
The Court did, however, disallow an ECI that called for the Greek public debt to be written off (‘One million signatures for a Europe of solidarity’); the Commission had turned it down on 6 September 2012, the General Court of the EU rejected the appeal on 30 September 2015 (see EUROPE 11400/24); the plaintiff then appealed the decision before the Court of Justice, but lost the case on 12 September 2017 (see EUROPE 11860/26).
Around 20 initiatives have been mothballed for failing to rally the required level of support and another 15 or so were withdrawn by their organisers themselves in the course of the procedure. ‘Stop TTIP’, incidentally, is one of them (withdrawn on 9 July 2018); although approved by the Court and then the Commission, the issue ended up losing its relevance, as the CETA has been signed and sealed in the meantime and the TTIP fell off the agenda of transatlantic relations. (To be continued)
Renaud Denuit