The Impact of The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) On Increasing Citizen Participation in The EU by Victor J. Pérez

redonditas@gmail.
com
The impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on increasing citizen

participation in the EU
Master’s thesis
composed to obtain the academic degree
Master of Arts in Business
at the Fachhochschule Burgenland GmbH
submitted by
Victor Julio PÉREZ
(PKZ 1310402025)
at the Fachhochschul-Masterstudiengang
European Studies – Management of EU-Projects
Tutor: Arnold H. KAMMEL
Eisenstadt, September 18, 2015

I, Victor J. Pérez (PKZ 1310402025), hereby declare
1 That this thesis entitled
The impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on increasing citizen

participation in the EU
And the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of
others, it is always clearly stated.
2 I also declare that I have never submitted a Master’s thesis or comparable written
work with the same or a similar topic to the Fachhochschule Burgenland GmbH or to
another academic institution.
Eisenstadt, September 18, 2015
___________________________
Victor J. Pérez
Executive Summary
This Master thesis addresses the impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on
increasing citizen participation in the European Union and proposes potential
measures to increase this citizen participation in the use of their rights as EU citizens.
The research questions will focus on the impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative on
the citizen participation in the EU decision and law making and which possible
improvements can be proposed in order to increase the functioning and use of this tool.
The main goal of this work is to evaluate the general functioning of the ECI as a means
for citizen participation and to determine potential measures to increase this
participation. The specific objectives are: to study the legal basis of the ECI, to study
previous cases of ECIs submitted to the Commission, to describe and analyze the first
two ECIs answered by the Commission and to propose possible ways to strengthen or
improve the functioning of the ECI and the involvement of EU citizens.
The content of this work may be useful for the policy makers both at the EU and the
national level when designing ways to raise the level of public participation of the
European citizens, as well as to the very citizens who might be looking for ways to see
their petitions and suggestions reflected in the laws but don’t know or don’t understand
the functioning of the system and the tools they have available to exercise their rights.
The core results of the research confirm the hypothesis set out that the ECI is currently
underutilized thus it neither impacts citizen participation in the use of their rights as EU
citizens nor reaches its potential. In consequence, some measures are proposed in
order to enhance and increase citizen participation in the EU, in particular the better
application of the ECI, through the creation of an independent institution that may
support the process for an ECI to reach a good conclusion.
A special word of gratitude to God who gave me the strength and wisdom to write this
paper. Furthermore, to Dr. Arnold Kammel for his tutoring and for being an example to
follow, his dedication and passion for the EU is of great encouragement. Also thanks to
my wife who has been an amazing support for the preparation of this thesis, and to
Dawson sisters for taking care of my loved kids during my hours of writing this pages.
I
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary .......................................................................................................I

TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................II
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ............................................................III
TABLE OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... IV
1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1
2. Democracy and the European Union ......................................................................2
2.1. Democracy ...............................................................................................................2
2.2. Direct Democracy in the European Union ................................................................5
2.2.1. Treaty of Lisbon ..................................................................................................10
2.3 European Parliament ..............................................................................................13
2.4 European Commission ............................................................................................14
3. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) .................................................................16
3.1. The legal framework ...............................................................................................17
3.2 How can an ECI be launched? – The procedure step by step. ...............................20
4. Study of cases of Initiatives answered by the Commission. .............................25
4.1. Right2Water Initiative .............................................................................................25
4.2. One of us Initiative .................................................................................................28
5. Analysis of impressions and suggestions from the organizers. ........................32
5.1 Right2Water ............................................................................................................32
5.2 One of Us ................................................................................................................33
5.3 Common points of view from both ECI organizers ..................................................35
6. Analysis of impressions and suggestions from the EC in the same cases
study. ............................................................................................................................37
7. Conclusions and proposal of possible measures to increase the citizen
participation in the use of their rights as EU citizen, with the application of the
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). ............................................................................45
7.1 Possible measures to enhance the application of the European Citizens’ Initiative.
......................................................................................................................................50
7.2. The Electronic Platform ..........................................................................................54
7.3. Consulting offered by ACEPI .................................................................................55
7.4. Creation of awareness of the European values and ECI unique value ..................56
7.5. Widening the range of financial resources .............................................................56
8. Literature: ................................................................................................................60
9. APPENDIX. ...............................................................................................................63
II
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
ACEPI Agency for the Promotion of the European Citizens’ Initiative

BSI Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik – German Federal
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjOffice for Information Security
DNI Documento Nacional de Identidad – Spanish National Identification
jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjNumber
EC European Commission
ECI European Citizens’ Initiative
ECJ European Court of Justice
EP European Parliament
EPSU European Federation of Public Service Unions
EU European Union
ISA Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations
NGOs Non Governmental Organizations
TEU Treaty European Union
TFEU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
III
TABLES AND GRAPHICS
Table 1: ECI procedures..……………………………………………………………………24

Table 2. Number and distributions of signatories for the ECI “Right2Water”…………..26
Table 3. Number and distributions of signatories for the ECI “One of Us”……………..29
Table 4: Basic example of the open ECI list…………………………………………….…55
Graphic 1: ECIs requested before the European Commission………………………….46

Graphic 2: ECIs registered before the European Commission………………………….47
Graphic 3: Number of ECIs registered per year…………………………………………..49
IV
Victor J. Pérez Master Program European Studies and Management of EU Projects, 2013
1. INTRODUCTION
The European Union, a political economic union with a high level of integration,
represents a space where more than 500 million people from 28 countries live. These
are the European citizens’ who, as far as they live in a representative democracy, are
allowed to and willing to participate in the formulation and implementation of public
policy, in an organized or individual manner. The European Citizens' Initiative
introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon allows at least one million EU citizens to participate
directly in the development of EU policies, by calling on the European Commission to
make a legislative proposal.
This work will concentrate on the European Citizens’ Initiative and its impact on the
citizen participation in the EU decision-making as well as which possible improvements
can be proposed in order to increase the functioning and use of this tool and thus
citizen participation?
The main goal of this work is to evaluate the general functioning of the ECI as a means
for citizen participation and determine potential measures to increase this participation.
The specific objectives are:
- To study the legal basis of the ECI.

- To study previous cases of ECI submitted to the Commission.
- To describe and analyze the first two ECI answered by the Commission.
- To propose possible ways to strengthen or improve the functioning of the ECI
and the involvement of EU citizens.
As it was proposed, the first two European Citizens’ Initiatives answered by the
Commission will be taken as case studies in order to evaluate the general functioning
of the tool and possible improvements to increase its use for stronger citizen
participation in the EU.
The underlying hypothesis of this work is that the ECI is not utilized to the desirable
extend to impact citizen participation in the use of their rights as EU citizens and thus it
is not reaching its potential as the important tool for participatory democracy as it was
1
conceived. Some measures should be put in place in order to increase the citizen
participation in the EU, particularly in the application of the ECI.
This work will be conducted through Qualitative Research using the method of case
study and a hermeneutical approach. Two cases of successful fulfillment of the
European Citizens’ Initiative will be studied in order to elaborate and analyze the
functioning of the European Citizens’ Initiative.
This Master thesis is based on the analysis of recent literature dealing with the topic of
democracy and the genesis and development of the European Union. The research for
this literature was made via online and through visits to the library. For the specific
issue of the European Citizens’ Initiative, since this is rather a recent topic, one of the
challenges encountered throughout the research was the limited literature available.
Nonetheless, the website of the European Commission provided for transparent
information related to ECIs in general and the two answered ECIs in particular.
As means of gathering first-hand information on these two cases, the technique of the
interview will be carried out in order to get the views of the main protagonists of the
selected cases. Subsequently, the position of the European Commission will be
studied to other research techniques in order to know its perspective on the same case
study.
2. Democracy and the European Union
2.1. Democracy
The concept of democracy, in its simplest form, can be defined using the two Greek
words Demos (people) and Kratos (rule), to make the word democracy, which can
mean ¨rule by the people¨. Democracy is one of the most used concepts in social
science and its definitions vary quite a bit.
Schumpeter defines democracy as the “institutional arrangement for arriving at political

decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive
struggle for the people’s vote” (Schumpeter, 1976, p. 269).
2
Democracy is the most common government system of this age. From the 193
countries in the world that are members of the United Nations, it is said that 123 have
declared democracy as their governmental system or are democratic countries
(Ziomek, 2013). The word “declared” has special emphasis; since there are different
levels to measure a democracy, there are also many institutions doing these types of
studies considering different variables. It’s necessary to be precise when defining
standards when evaluating this topic.
Direct Democracy and public participation
Direct democracy could be defined as an umbrella term for direct electorate

participation procedures of political decision-making in important factual issues
(Pállinger & Marxer, 2007, p. 14). The spectrum of direct democratic participation
procedures ranges from nonbinding legislative motivation of the electorate (“public
initiative”), to obligatory (constitutional) referenda to the “plebiscite” (Giese, 2008, p.
85).
Public participation is a vital part of democracy and it should mean that citizens are
enabled to make use of their political rights in the most efficient way, for example to
elect their representatives, join associations and influence decision-making on matters
of their interest.
It can be understood as the means to involve those who are affected by a decision of
the authorities in a given country or any other political level. According to Beierly and
Cayfor (2002, p. 16) public participation can be understood as any of the several
“mechanisms” intentionally instituted to involve the lay public or their representatives in
administrative decision making. These authors affirm that a fundamental challenge for
administrative governance is reconciling the need for expertise in managing
administrative programs with the transparency and participation demanded by a
democratic system.
Citizenship and civil society
The concept of Citizenship coined by Marshall in 1949 has been valid until now: it is a
status, given to all full members of a community. That status is assuring rights and
3
duties, though there is no universal principle what those should be (Marshall &
Bottomore, 1998, p. 37).
Citizenship is about expanding and enriching the notion of equality by extending its
scope through civil, political and social rights to public education, health care,
unemployment insurance, and old-age pension (King & Waldron, 1988, p. 423).
Another concept that is linked with the exercise of citizenship in an organized manner
is the figure of civil society. This has been defined as all intermediary organizations that
lie between the primary units of society such as individuals, families, clans, ethnic
groups and so forth and formal governmental agencies and institutions (Schmitter,
1991, p. 16).
The nature and composition of civil society can differ from country to country. In
principle, civil society institutions must be autonomous of the state. A specific form of
citizenship can be found within the EU as it will be demonstrated in the following
chapters.
4
2.2. Direct Democracy in the European Union
The European Union is a good example of a democracy, being the result of the
democratic decision of its Institutions and Member States working on a common
agenda to bring a mutual benefit.
In the last twenty years most of the EU Member States have applied or developed
procedures of direct-democratic participation in the form of initiatives and referenda on
local, regional and national level. There are other countries such as Germany, Belgium,
Czech Republic, Netherlands and Cyprus without instruments of direct democracy at
national level, in any case, these experiences offered the required fundament in the
direct-democracy for the EU to make the step to position the first transnational tool
ever made, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which will be addressed in detail
later on.
Furthermore, the European Union had incorporated, through the Treaty of Lisbon, a
tool that allows European citizens to exercise the principle of direct democracy, namely
the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI).
Despite all this developments, there has been a debate about the level of democracy in
the EU. Some have argued that the EU may be suffering a democratic deficit and
thereby risking undermining the capacities of democratic political systems to evolve
and reform into ever more effective and legitimate agents of citizens (Warren, 2009, p.
5).
Some scholars, as Professor Chris Rumford, say that there is hardly a sphere of EU
activity not implicated in the democratic deficit, a rather imprecise term ranging across
diverse issues such as the representatives of EU institutions, the abstract nature of
citizenship rights, and the ‘gap’ between policy-making and citizens. The democratic
deficit most commonly refers to the problem of instituting democratic mechanisms
within the EU, which compare favorably with those already functioning at nation-state
level (Rumford, 2003, p. 11).
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European Citizenship
At this point, it is important to have a clear understanding of what does it mean to be a

European Union Citizen.
Citizenship has to do with rights and identity, the term 'European citizenship' is
perceived as though it were a condition by which people from different nations should
have similar rights to be asserted vis-à-vis the European public courts and public
officials (Pérez-Díaz, 1988, p. 235).
The Maastricht Treaty introduced the European Citizenship concept in 1992, as any
national of a Member State of the Union. Nowadays the Consolidated Version of the
Treaty on European Union (TEU) in its second title called Provisions on Democratic
Principles and more specifically in its article 9, defines the citizenship of the Union,
which should be an additionally citizenship for every Member State citizen and it should
not replace the Member State citizenship; at the same time it expresses the importance
that the citizens should receive equal attention from EU institutions around the whole
EU territory. Article 9 reads as follows:
“In all its activities, the Union shall observe the principle of the equality of its citizens,
who shall receive equal attention from its institutions, bodies, offices and agencies.
Every national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the
Union shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship.”
The EU citizenship gives several advantages to each Member State citizen,

advantages such as the right to freely move, settle and work across the EU, every
citizen has the right to participate in the democratic life of the EU. As well, the citizens
have the right of consular protection by other EU states’ in Non-EU-Countries;
additionally the citizens have the right to participate in an ECI.
The beginning of European integration and the first developments with regard to
direct democracy
6
At the end of World War II some of the European leaders started to think in the
possibility of a more unified and democratic Europe, but without losing their own
identity. Winston Churchill said in his remarkable speech in Zurich on September 1946
“If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance, there would be
no limit to the happiness, to the prosperity and glory which its three or four hundred
million people would enjoy”. The war left a very low moral and sadness in the people,
also a huge division between the nationals of the countries involved in war. The same
Winston Churchill emphasized the importance of having a new start, a new opportunity
to correct the mistakes and do not give up for a better future in a unified Europe.
“There must be an act of faith in the European family and an act of oblivion against all
the crimes and follies of the past” (Churchill, 1946).
In 1949 when the discussion on the establishment of the Coal and Steel Union began,
the French General Charles de Gaulle (later on President of France), made the
following statement: “The organization of Europe has to proceed from Europe itself. I
consider that the start shall be given by a popular vote of all free Europeans”
(Esposito, 2003).
It is very special and genuine to see the mindset and vision of those who had defended
their countries during the war. These leaders that aroused with a visionary point of view
to transform the future of Europe in a better place planted a seed that later on
harvested peace and unity among the same nations that were involved in such a great
chaos.
Another visionary that was able to think beyond was Altiero Spinelli, in his Ventotene
Manifest written in 1941 from jail in Ventotene island, he captured the following
statement: “A free and united Europe is the necessary premise to the strengthening of
modern civilization, that has been temporarily halted the totalitarian era” (Spinelli,
1941). Years later, he proposed the creation of an EU constitution that should be
ratified directly by the vote of the people.
As it could be seen, there was an impetuous desire to generate important changes for
a new EU era. Most of the thoughts of the last 60 years have been related to make,
keep, and strengthen peace and union by involving the citizens in the design of their
7
destiny. Nevertheless, this brilliant idea took some time before getting ripe and bringing
fruitful results.
Although in the 90s the discussion in Europe was related to the democratic deficit in
European governance, since the Maastricht Treaty led to increased supranationalism
through the three- pillar structure. This situation opens an opportunity to explore new
alternative for the citizens.
The European Union expert Bruno Kaufmann (2012, p. 230) presents the historical
background of what paved the way to the future European Citizens’ Initiative. In 1993,
the Public Liberty and Domestic Affair Commission of the European Parliament
expressed its support for the introduction of a “European legislative referendum”. This
helped to ensure that in the preparations and during the Amsterdam intergovernmental
conference in the mid-1990s the possibility of introducing a formal right of submission
for EU citizens was discussed for the first time. An interesting and concrete input came
from civil society. One of the many initiatives which emerged during a democratic and
geopolitical era in the 1990s (after the fall of the Berlin wall), a civil society network
called Eurotopia, that was build up by a group of people from several European
countries, with the objective to discuss proposals and prospects for a European
constitution with a direct democratic element. In June 1994 in a meeting celebrated in
Trento, Italy, the idea of European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) had gathered considerable
momentum. Representatives from the Italian and Austrian governments were also
presented as observers and reported back to their capitals about the idea of the ECI.
This resulted in a big surprise at the 1996 – 1997 Amsterdam Intergovernmental
Conference. The then Austrian Foreign Minister, Wolfgang Schüssel and his Italian
colleague Lamberto Dini presented the first draft of a European Citizens’ Initiative.
Nevertheless, according to Kaufmann the proposal “was a weak (…) and somewhat
wrongly directed initiative, with extremely high thresholds” (Kaufmann, 2012, p.231),
given that it expected to open the way for the presentation on an agenda initiative to
the EP with only 10 percent of the EU citizens with signatures from at least three
countries. However, the idea of a citizen initiative had now come into the attention of
the European Commission and the Member States.
8
In December 2001, the European Head of States and Governments agreed at the
summit in Laeken to establish a Convention on the future of Europe. The Convention
that was composed of representatives of the Member States and EU parliaments got
the task to draft a constitutional treaty for the enlarged EU. The first meeting of the
Convention in 2002 inspired and brought together many key members. Each of them
started to develop ideas and concepts as to how direct-democratic elements could be
included in forthcoming EU Treaties.
In 2003 the proposal by the representative of the German Bundestag to the Convention
Jürgen Meyer was finally successful. The proposal managed to break down the last
resistance in the Convention presidium and contributed to the last breakthrough to
include the ECI as an instrument for transnational agenda from below. This last
amendment built the foundation for the final text in the constitution, presented by the
Convention Chairman Giscard d’Estaing on June 13, 2003:
Citizen Initiative – Article I-46, p. 4
A significant number of citizens, not less than one million, coming from a significant
number of member States, may invite the Commission to submit any appropriate
proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act on the Union is required
for the purpose of implementing this Constitution. A European law shall determine the
provisions regarding the specific procedures and conditions required for such a
citizens’ request. (cited by Kaufmann, 2012, p. 232).
In the meantime, the inclusion of the ECI started to play an important role in a series of
nationwide popular votes as a new basic law of the EU.
In 2005 the proposed ECI right became as an important topic in favor of the new treaty
during the popular vote debate in Spain. According to Flash Eurobarometer report,
published by the European Commission after the Spanish vote, 45% of the voters were
aware of the new ECI and 65% thought that the treaty would strengthen democracy at
the transnational level. At the end, 76.7 % of the participating Spanish citizens did
approve the treaty. However, the popular votes in France and later in the Netherlands
did not reached the amount of vote to approve the treaty, being non-ratified. Since the
European Treaties must be ratified by all Member States in order to become EU Law, it
9
took another round of negotiations and popular votes in Ireland in 2008 and 2009
before the slightly amended Treaty of Lisbon was finally ratified and entered into force
on December 1, 2009 (Kaufmann, 2012, p. 232).
2.2.1. Treaty of Lisbon
The Treaty of Lisbon being the last reform step in European integration so far,
amended both, the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the
European Community. It was signed at Lisbon, on 13 December 2007. The Treaty
entered into force on 1 December 2009, after having been ratified by all Member
States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
The Lisbon Treaty is the result of a decades-long development. This was an outcome
of efforts to democratize the EU decision-making process as well as pressures created
by the tendency to submit major EU decisions through popular votes.
The Lisbon Treaty also meant the realization of libertarian ideas with the principle of
peace and unity declared for leaders such as Altiero Spinelli, Charles de Gaulle,
Winston Churchill and others that were not able to see a peaceful, united Europe with
democratic framework that allows the citizens to exercise the right to decide at EU
level.
The expectations of the European Commission at the time when the Lisbon Treaty
entered into force was that it “will lead to greater efficiency in the decision making
process, increased democratic accountability by associating the European Parliament
and national parliaments and increased coherence externally. All of these
improvements will equip the EU better to defend the interests of its citizens on a day-
today basis” (Commission, 2009).
The world is changing very fast. Europe faces huge challenges in the 21st century
including the economic crisis, climate change, sustainable development, energy,
security and fighting international cross-border crime.
The Member States who drew up the Lisbon Treaty together recognized that the
previous treaties did not equip the European Union with the tools it needs to face and
10
deal with these challenges. Also the several enlargement rounds led to a not fully
equipped institutional set-up for a union of more than 20+ member states.
The intended purpose of the Lisbon Treaty was to make the EU more democratic,
efficient and transparent. It gives citizens and parliaments a bigger input into what goes
on at a European level, and gives Europe a clearer, stronger voice in the world, all the
while protecting national interests.
Today, members of the EU enjoy a wealth of benefits; a free market with a unique
currency that makes trade easier and more efficient, the creation of millions of jobs,
improved workers' rights, free movement of people and a cleaner environment.
For this reason, it’s possible to see a relevant change in the EU through this Treaty.
But before getting in those details, let us observe an essential history that would help
us to understand the Treaty and then the focus is going to be in the development of the
ECI as the democratic instrument in the European Union.
The most relevant aspects of this treaty with regard to direct democracy are:
- The Lisbon Treaty amends and updates earlier EU treaties.
- It takes into account of the fact that the EU has grown from the six founding
Member States to its present 28 and the many developments in the last 50 years.
- The Lisbon Treaty, was approved for the 27 EU Member States at that time.
They improved working methods to ensure that the Union does its business as
efficiently and effectively as possible in the 21st century.
- The Treaty helps the EU to serve the citizen interests better, and gives them a
direct say in European matters through the new Citizens' Initiative.
- It strengthens the role of the European Parliament and gives new powers to
national parliaments.
- It makes decision-making at the European level more efficient.
11
The European Union with all this new aspect facilitated and created a more dynamic
EU.
The Lisbon Treaty streamlines the EU’s decision-making procedures.
Article 16 of the TEU establishes that the Council of Ministers shall act by aqualified
majority except where the Treaties provide otherwise.This is instead of unanimous
decisions and it should help to make action faster and more efficient. Qualified majority
voting means that, since 2014, decisions of the Council of Ministers just need the
support of 55% of the Member States, representing at least 65% of the European
population. This system gives double legitimacy to decisions.
Strict rules are applied to any proposal to move new policy areas to majority voting.
Every Member State must agree to such change and the national parliaments will have
a right of veto. But important policy areas such as taxation and defense still continue to
require a unanimous vote due to its sensitive character.
The Lisbon Treaty has increased the number of areas where the European Parliament
shares decision making with the Council of Ministers, according to Art. 289 TFEU. That
means that the MEPs directly elected by the European citizens have much more to say
in law-making and the EU Budget.
At home, the national parliaments will have greater opportunities to make a direct input
into EU decision-making. A new early warning system, based on Article 12 TEU, gives
national parliaments the right to comment on draft laws and to check that the EU does
not overstep its authority by involving itself in matters best dealt with nationally or
locally.
The Lisbon Treaty, in Article 6 TEU, recognizes the rights, freedoms and principles set
out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and made the Charter legally binding. Rights,
which everyone should enjoy, including personal data protection, the right to asylum,
equality before the law and non-discrimination, equality between men and women, the
rights of children and elderly people and important social rights such as protection
12
against unfair dismissal and access to social security and social assistance. The Treaty
also allowed the EU to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. The
Convention, and the European Court of Human Rights which oversees it, are the
foundations of human rights protection in Europe.
The entire mentioned benefits make through the Lisbon Treaty bring the EU to another
level with better and stronger relationship between the European Union (as
government), and the citizens it represented. The Treaty as well, positioned the EU in
the international arena with one voice to tackle the currently world challenges and
beyond.
2.3 European Parliament
The European Parliament is together with the Council the EU’s law-making body. Its
parliamentarians are directly elected by the EU citizens’ vote every 5 years since 1979
when it was created. The 750 members of the parliament plus its president represent
over 500 million citizens from the 28 Member States. The European Parliament
provision is found in Articles 223 to 234 Treaty of the Functioning of the European
Union (TFEU).
Its main functions are:
- Legislative function: Legislate as co-legislator sharing with the Council the power to
adopt and amend legislative proposals from the European Commission, decide issues
related to international agreements, decide on enlargements, reviewing the
Commission’s work programme and ask it to propose legislation.
- Supervisory function: Supervise democratic scrutiny of all EU institutions, elect the
Commission President and approving the Commission body, discuss monetary policy
with the European Central Bank, supervise Commission and Council operation via
yearly reports offer by them.
- Budgetary function: Establish the EU budget, together with the Council and approve
the EU’s long-term budget.
The European Parliament has been dedicating a lot of attention to the ECI, even before
the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty adopting a resolution containing a detailed
13
proposal for the implementation of the ECI (European Parliament, 2009). Then, after
the entry into force of the Treaty, the Parliament was actively involved in the
negotiation of the ECI Regulation, the Parliament contributed successfully to making
the ECI a more accessible and citizen-friendly instrument of participatory democracy.
Nowadays, the Parliament has the task and opportunity to receive the organizers of an
ECI that has completed the examination process made by the Commission and only
after the EP has been notified by the Commission that there is an ECI and is ready to
go to the public hearing at the European Parliament office, allowing the ECI organizers
to explain in detail the matters raised by the ECI.
2.4 European Commission
It was established in 1958 and located in Brussels. Its aim is to promote the general
interest of the EU by proposing and enforcing legislation as well as by implementing
policies and the EU budget. The Commission counted with 28 Commissioners, one per
Member State, and the EC President. They must be European Citizens and the entire
body must be approved by the European Parliament. The European Commission
provision is found in Articles 244 to 250 Treaty of the Functioning of the European
Union (TFEU).
The European Commission protects the interest of the EU and its citizens on issues
that cannot be dealt with effectively at the national level. The Commission gets
technical support by consulting expert and the public. Furthermore, the Commission
manages EU policies and allocates EU funding setting EU spending priorities, together
with the Council and European Parliament. It draws up annual budgets for approval by
the Parliament and Council and supervises how the money is spent, under the scrutiny
by the Court of Auditors. Besides, the Commission, together with the Court of Justice,
ensures that EU law is properly applied in all the Member States. Additionally, the
Commission speaks on behalf of all EU in international bodies, in particular in areas of
trade policy and humanitarian aid and negotiates international agreements for the EU.
In regards to the European Citizens’ Initiative, the European Commission should deal
with the registration process in accordance with the general principles of good
administrator as set out in the ECI Regulation. The Commission should be the
guarantor and examiner of the Citizens’ Initiatives and set out its legal and political
14
conclusions explaining in a clear, comprehensible and detailed manner the reasons for
its intended action. Additionally, It should be part of the authorized bodies at the public
hearing and in case the European Parliament decides to adopt the topic brought by the
ECI, the Commission may decide to follow the ECI topic to start the legislative
procedure.
15
3. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)
The European Citizens’ Initiative is the first ever direct democracy tool aside of the
participation of European citizens’ in the elections to the European Parliament. The
European Parliament on its official website describes the ECI as follows: “The
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an important instrument of participatory
democracy in the European Union. Thanks to this measure, one million EU citizens
residing in at least one quarter of the Member States can invite the Commission to
submit a proposal for a legal act which they consider to be required in order to
implement the EU Treaties. The ECI gives EU citizens a right similar to the right of
initiative of the European Parliament and the Council” (European Parliament, 2015).
The European Citizens’ Initiative as it is known nowadays is a democratic tool that

strengthens the rights of the EU citizens, giving them the opportunity to present
legislative proposals to the European Commission in matters where the EU has
competence to legislate.
The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) represents a great opportunity for EU citizens to
be proactive and put their proposals forward, applying the principle of direct
democracy, allowing the citizens to influence and participate in the design of the EU
policies.
As it was mentioned, the ECI is the first element of transnational direct democracy
ever. Many countries have implemented or developed procedures of direct democracy
in the form of initiatives or referendum at local, regional or even national level, but the
ECI is the first direct democratic tool between more than two countries (28 to be exact)
that opens the door to common citizens in the decision of political matters that affect all
of them at the same time. This is an instrument that exceeds any other kind of
democratic principles applied before as it allows citizens across the countries of the
European Union to participate in matters that affect them all.
It is very likely that other regions of the world such as Latin America may be following
carefully the development of this instrument that is pioneering and breaking through all
expectations and actions implemented before in the issue of direct democracy.
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The involvement of several countries in the application of a tool such as the ECI in the
European Union made it rather difficult since there are 28 Member States with a total
population around 500 million people, different backgrounds, cultures, languages, etc.
In the other hand, it should be a simple process to be implemented by the EU citizens.
For all the supporters of stronger direct democracy, it was an exciting moment when
the EU commissioner, Vice President Maroš Šefčovič addressed the public hearing in
February 2010, agreed with the civil society and supported the benefit to have such
tool as ECI:
“Citizens want this tool to be use-friendly. They want it to be simple, straightforward,

understandable and most of all accessible! I could not agree more. This instrument
needs to be used. We need to make it as easy as possible to use in order to foster a
European public space, widen the sphere of public debate across Europe and bring the
EU closer to the concerns of the citizens” (Šefčovič, cited by Kaufmann, 2012, p.233).
3.1. The legal framework
The ECI in the Treaty of the European Union and the Regulations
The following paragraphs offer a description of the legal resources that establish the
framework for an ECI will be presented, namely Article 11 TEU which states:
“Article 11
1. The institutions shall, by appropriate means, give citizens and representative
associations the opportunity to make known and publicly exchange their views in all
areas of Union action.
2. The institutions shall maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with
representative associations and civil society.
3. The European Commission shall carry out broad consultations with parties
concerned in order to ensure that the Union’s actions are coherent and transparent.
4. Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of
Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the
17
framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens
consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the
Treaties.
The procedures and conditions required for such a citizens’ initiative shall be
determined in accordance with the first paragraph of Article 24 of the Treaty on the
Functioning of the European Union” (European Union, 2009, Art. 11, TEU).
This article describes the relationship between the EU institutions and EU citizens, in
particular the rights that the citizens have to be listened and publicly exchange their
point of view in all areas of the EU actions. At the same time the EU institutions should
maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with the citizens through
representative associations or civil society through public exchanges. This article
shows as well, the role of the Commission carrying out broad consultations with the
civil society to certify that the European Union’s actions are coherent and transparent.
Finally, the last paragraph describes the instrument of the ECI stating that at least one
million citizens from different EU Member States may approach and invite the
Commission, according the framework of its powers, to submit a proposal on issues
where the citizens consider that a legal act of the EU must be required with the
objective of implementing the Treaties. Additionally, it expresses the conditions and
the requirements for a Citizens’ Initiative are determined accordance to the first
paragraph of Article 24 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. A
detailed description of these steps will follow.
Article 24 TFEU describes the role of the European Parliament and the Council through
ordinary legislative procedure may adopt the regulation that will establish the
conditions for an ECI:
Article 24 TFEU
The European Parliament and the Council, acting by means of regulations in
accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, shall adopt the provisions for the
procedures and conditions required for a citizens’ initiative within the meaning of Article
11 of the Treaty on European Union, including the minimum number of Member States
from which such citizens must come. (European Union, 2009, Art. 24, TFEU).
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The rules and procedures governing the citizens' initiative are set out in an EU
Regulation adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European
Union. The Regulation was published on 16 of February 2011 and it is called
Regulation EU N° 211/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the
Citizens’ Initiative. This Regulation gives the details the citizens need to know to start
the process on European Citizens’ Initiative. The Regulation of the ECI was warmly
welcomed especially within the EU institutions. The then European Parliament
President Jerzy Buzek pointed out: “I am convinced that the European Citizens’
Initiative will help civil society in engaging in truly European debates on how the EU
can help improving their daily lives in practice. This legal instrument will establish
another direct link between the citizens and the Union’s institutions, bridging the gap
between them. The citizens’ initiative will constitute a unique exercise in democracy on
an EU-wide scale” (Buzek, 2011).
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3.2 How can an ECI be launched? – The procedure step by step.
The ECI process involves a number of steps, in order to launch a citizens' initiative.
Those steps are named as follows:
• Citizens' Committee formation.

• The registration of the proposed initiative.
• Collection of Statement of Support.
• Verification of the Statements of Support.
• Submission of the Initiative to the Commission.
• Examination, Public Hearing in the European Parliament and answer by the
Commission.
The Commission website related to the ECI describes very clearly which are the
necessary steps to follow in order to successfully complete the process of a ECI, as it
could be read below.
Citizens' Committee formation
The organizers must form a "citizens' committee", which must be formed by at least
seven EU citizens from seven different Member States. The proposed initiative must be
registered by the Commission. The citizens' committee has a period of two months to
make the registration. The proposed initiative should include the following information:
- The title of the proposed citizens’ initiative must content a maximum of 100 characters.
- The subject matter a maximum of 200 characters.
- The objective of the proposed citizens’ initiative where the Commission is invited to act
must contain non-more than 500 characters.
- The personal data of the seven EU citizens that are members of the citizens'
committee. Information such as Full names, postal addressee, nationalities and date of
birth. Additionally, the phone number and email of the representative of the citizens'
committee and his/her substitute.
- Documents that prove the information required in the last point.
- It is also important to consign the data of those sponsors that are funding (known at the
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time of registration) an amount over 500 Euros per year.
Regarding funding and transparency in accordance with the Regulation, the organizers
have to provide information on all sources exceeding 500 Euros per year and per
sponsor. Also the Article 3(1) of the Regulation says that the funding information
should be showed and regularly updated in the website of the ECI organizer.
The registration phase
In order to make the registration, the proposed initiative must comply with the
conditions set out in Article 4(2) of the Regulation, which requires that a citizens’
committee has been formed and the contact persons have been designated; that the
proposed initiative does not manifestly fall outside the framework of the Commission’s
powers to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union for the purpose of
implementing the Treaties; that the initiative is not manifestly abusive, frivolous or
vexatious; and is not manifestly contrary to the values of the Union as set out in Article
2 of the Treaty on European Union.
After the registration process if the organizer pretends to collect statements of support
online, he must build an online collection system, accessible through their website, that
responds to the broad security and technical requirements set out in the Article 6(4) of
the Regulation on the citizens’ initiative. As soon the as the collection system is set up
and fully complies with the requirements in the regulation, the organizer should request
the competent national authority of the Member States where the data will be stored to
certify their system. The organizers have one month to set up all the system. The EC
website offers tips for the certification and other detailed information related to the
online certification process in the website.
Collection of Statement of Support
The organizers of an initiative have 12 months to collect statements of support, as

soon the registration process is confirmed. According to Article 6 of the Regulation,
organizers must build their online collection system and get it certified by a competent
21
authority in the Member State where the data collected will be stored before starting to
collect statements of support online via this system.
Organizers can use the Commission's software (with or without modifications) or any
other software of their choice. In order to build a complete system, organizers have to
find hosting servers (also complying with the technical specifications) to install their
software (Report of the EC to the EP and the Council, page 6, March 2015).
According to the report made by the EC in March 2015 any EU citizen of the age to
vote in European Parliament elections is entitled to give support to an initiative. In
Austria the age for election vote is 16 years old in the rest of the Member States is at
18 years old. Signatories can give their support in paper form or online, on the basis of
forms compliant with the model set out in Annex III to the Regulation. It is also possible
to give support to an initiative using an advanced electronic signature, but no use of
this mean has been reported to date.
Verification of the Statements of Support
The Article 15 of the Regulation established that Member States have designated
competent authorities for the verification of the statements of support. Every Member
State has been requested to verify statements of support. They are allowed to use a
random sampling verification method. The organizers have to collect a minimum
amount of signatures by Member State to validate the Statements of Support. The
Article 7 of the regulation established the minimum number of signatures for Member
State correspond to the number of the Members of the European Parliament elected in
each Member State, multiplied by 750, which is the total of parliamentarians at the
European Parliament. For example: Austria required 14.250 signatures, a small
Member State such as Malta required 4.500 signatures.
The organizers need to send the statements of support in paper or electronic form. It
will be important to separate those statements of support collected in paper form from
those collected through an online collection system, in case the organizer used as well
an advanced electronic signature it must be separated too.
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The national authorities of all the countries where statements of support were collected
have three months to certify the number of valid statements.
Submission of the Initiative to the Commission
The Commission welcomes the organizers to submit their initiative accompanied by the
information on the support and funding they have received for their initiative, as soon
as the organizers have received the certificates from the national competent authorities
(from at least seven member states) within non less than one million signatures in their
statements of support and having at least seven countries passing the national
tresholds.
Examination, Public Hearing in the European Parliament and answer by the

Commission
After the submission of the initiative the organizers of the initiative will meet the
Commission representatives to explain in detail the issues raised in their initiative. The
organizers also have the opportunity to visit the European Parliament for a public
hearing where they will be able to express in detail the issues raised in the initiative.
Within three months, the Commission will adopt a formal response related to the
citizens’ initiative in form of a Communication spelling out its legal and political
conclusions on the citizens’ initiative and what action it will propose in response,
including reasons for doing the proposal law or not. The Commission is not obligated to
propose legislation as a result of an initiative. In cases the Commission decides to
follow the citizens’ initiatives, the legislative procedure starts. The proposal will be
submitted to the legislators (European Parliament and Council) as all the proposals
made by the Commission and those decide whether it becomes adopted.
The following table offers an overview of the process:
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Table 1: ECI procedures
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4. Study of cases of Initiatives answered by the Commission.
At the time this master thesis will be presented, two initiatives have been launched and
received answer from the European Commission, meanwhile it would have answered
the third initiative that has fulfilled the requirement established in the Regulation (EU)
211/2011(under the name Stop Vivisection). During the research process for this
analysis it was impossible to add the third initiative, since the results were not delivered
at the time of writing the thesis.
4.1. Right2Water Initiative
It was the first Initiative implemented and submitted to the European Commission with
more than 1.8 million signatures collected, validated and then, answered by the
European Commission.
Right2Water Initiative has been organized by the European Trade Unions. The Trade
Unions through their consultations invited the European Commission to propose
“legislation implementing the human right to water and sanitation as recognized by the
United Nations and promoting the provision of water and sanitation as essential public
services for all”. In other words, they proposed to grant water and sanitation a legal
recognition as a public good that should be accessible for all and it should be not
commercialized, since water is not a commodity.
The subject matter of “Right2Water” concerns in “We invite the European Commission
to propose legislation implementing the human right to water and sanitation as
recognized by the United Nations, and promoting the provision of water and sanitation
as essential public services for all”.
To achieve this, the main objectives stated by the organizers were that “The EU
legislation should require governments to ensure and to provide all citizens with
sufficient and clean drinking water and sanitation”. The requests presented for
consideration by the Commission were:
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1. “The EU institutions and Member States be obliged to ensure that all inhabitants
enjoy the right to water and sanitation.
2. Water supply and management of water resources not be subject to ‘internal market
rules’ and that water services are excluded from liberalization.
3. The EU increases its efforts to achieve universal access to water and sanitation.”
The funding and support declared by Right2Water (as is requested in the Article 9 of
the Regulation (EU) 211/2011) was: 140.000 EUR.
This ECI was registered on 10 May 2012 and submitted on 20 December 2013 with a
total of 1.659.543 signatures collected across all the 28 Member States of the EU.
Threshold was reached in 13 countries. The following Table shows the number and
distributions of signatories, highlighting in green the countries where threshold was
achieved.
Table 2. Number and distributions of signatories for the ECI “Right2Water”
Source: (European Commission, 2015).
In the website of the organization they describe who they are as follows:
The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) represents 275 trade
unions and over eight million workers in all kinds of public services in Europe. Other
European or international organizations that support the initiative include the European
Anti Poverty Network (EAPN), European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), European
Environmental Bureau (EEB), Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF), and
Public Services international, EPSU’s sister organization at global level. At national
level there are many more organizations supporting this ECI.
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The EPSU public services federation has long campaigned for recognition of the
human right to water and this ECI has been a vital step in getting this right enshrined in
legislation. Until now the European Union's main aim is to create a single market in
good and services. But water services are different. They are essential for life and
water is a limited natural resource. Water is not a commodity but a public good that
must be safeguarded, not opened up for competition. The human right must be central
in water policy, not competition or the completion of the internal market. Governments
are obliged to provide these services. This is also what the United Nations agreed after
several years of discussion. Governments have to implement these rights, not leave
these services to market forces.
According to the Communication from the Commission Nº /*COM/2014/0177 final*/, the

initiative raised cross-cutting issues, covering a wide range of policies at EU and
Member States level. It must be considered in accordance with EU Treaty rules,
including notably the principles of conferral, proportionality and subsidiarity (European
Commission, 2014).
After considering the request made by Right2Water, the Commission presented in this
Communication a number of achievements in the field of water supply and sanitation
as well as a series of commitments to take concrete steps and work on a number of
new actions in order to improve its performance on this matter.
In accordance with Article 10(2) of the ECI regulation, the said Communication was
notified to the organizers of the initiative as well as to the European Parliament and the
Council and it was made public.
Right2Water also received an Initiative Report by the European Parliament on securing

high quality drinking water and sanitation. That can be a satisfactory result, since it is
observed that the EU is increasing its efforts to guarantee a high quality drinking water
and sanitation to the EU citizens. On the other hand, free trade agreements are still
without exemptions for water and sanitation, the internal market is still regulating it.
Following these responses from the European institutions, the organizers have
committed to continue working and motivating the civil society to keep exerting
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pressure on the competence authorities to obtain the expecting results in the field of
Water supply and management of water resources not be subject to ‘internal market
rules’ and that water services are excluded from liberalization.
4.2. One of us Initiative
The European Citizens’ Initiative called “One of Us European Federation for Life and
Human Dignity” abbreviated as “One of US” is a non-denominational and apolitical
organization. It was the second initiative implemented and successfully finished with
more than 1.7 millions signatures collected.
The subject matter of the "One of Us" Initiative concerns the "juridical protection of the
dignity, the right to life and of the integrity of every human being from conception in the
areas of EU competence in which such protection is of particular importance".
The main objectives the organizers have stated are "the human embryo deserves
respect to its dignity and integrity. This is enounced by the European Court of Justice in
the Brüstle case, which defines the human embryo as the beginning of the
development of the human being. To ensure consistency in areas of its competence
where the life of the human embryo is at stake, the EU should establish a ban and end
the financing of activities which presuppose the destruction of human embryos, in
particular in the areas of research, development aid and public health" (European
Commission, 2012).
The organization has been the effort of a group of European pro-life NGOs that
decided to initiate and successfully culminated this Initiative. The aim of this initiative
was to request the EC to propose a law to stop possible financing of activities, which
presuppose the destruction of human embryos, in particular in the areas of research,
development aid and public health.
The funding and support declared by One of Us (as is requested in the Article 9 of the
Regulation (EU) 211/2011) was: 159.219 EUR.
This ECI was registered on 11 May 2012 and submitted on 27 February 2014, with a
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total of 1.721.626 signatures collected across all the 28 Member States of the EU.
Threshold was reached in 18 countries. The following Table shows the number and
distributions of signatories, highlighting in green the countries where threshold was
achieved.
Table 3. Number and distributions of signatories for the ECI “One of Us”
Source: (European Commission, 2015).
One of Us received the answer from the Commission Nº COM(2014) 355 final, where
they stated that the Initiative must be considered in accordance with EU Treaty rules,
including notably the principles of conferral, proportionality and subsidiarity (European
Commission, 2014).
The Commission carefully examined the request and answered that, as regards the
request to stop EU financing of activities which presuppose the destruction of human
embryos, the EU Financial Regulation therefore already ensures that all EU
expenditure, including in the areas of research, development cooperation and public
health, must respect human dignity, the right to life, and the right to the integrity of the
person. Moreover, the purpose of the Financial Regulation is to provide financial rules
in general terms and not for a specific field of EU policy, in particular for establishing
and implementing the EU budget.
The Commission also considered that it could not meet the request of the organizers
that the EU does not fund research subsequent to the establishment of human
embryonic stem cell lines. The reason is that the Commission formulated its proposal
taking into account ethical considerations, potential health benefits, and the added
value of support at EU level, for all types of stem cell research. This proposal was
adopted by the co-legislator, i.e. the European Parliament and the Council, based on
an agreement democratically reached during the inter-institutional negotiations.
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Finally, the Commission concluded that the EU primary legislation explicitly enshrines
human dignity, the right to life, and the right to the integrity of the person. The EU
Financial Regulation stated that all EU expenditure should comply with EU primary
legislation. Therefore the Commission does not see a need to propose changes to the
Financial Regulation.
The Commission decided not to submit a legislative proposal, given that Member
States and the European Parliament have only recently discussed and decided EU
policy in this regard. Nevertheless the Commission also announced a number of
actions in order to strengthen its policies on these matters.
In accordance with article 10(2) of the ECI regulation, the said Communication was
notified to the organizers of the initiative as well as to the European Parliament and the
Council and it was made public.
The initiative organizers felt that there was not an answer to their request, and the
Commission did not offer a window for an alternative solution. For this reason, the
organizers presented an appeal against the Commission in reaction to the answer
offered to this Initiative. They believe that there is a democratic deficit, when the ECI
was intended precisely to combat the so-called democratic deficit of the European
Union.
Currently, before the European Court of Justice, there is a law suit (case T 561/14)
subject to deliberations, which is an action brought in on 25 July 2014 where the
applicants are European Citizens’ Initiative One of Us and Others. The defendants are
European Parliament, European Commission and Council of the European Union
(European Court of Justice, 2014).
According to the content of the mentioned action brought on 25 July 2014, the
applicants claim that the Court should:
- annul the Commission communication COM (2014) 355 final, in the alternative,
- annul of the Article 10(1)(c) of the Regulation (EU) Nº 211/2011, which declare as
follows: (c) within three months, set out in a communication its legal and political
conclusions on the citizens’ initiative, the action it intends to take, if any, and its
reasons for taking or not taking that action.
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- Additionally, the applicants order the defendants to pay the applicant’s cost of this
procedure.
In support of the action, the applicants rely on three pleas in law, as follows (European
Court of Justice, 2014):
- First plea in law, alleging that the Commission’s reply to the applicants’ legislative
proposal and to the issues raised by the applicants in the citizens’ initiative ‘One of us’
is unsatisfactory as the Commission i) does not respond to the fact that the human
embryo is a human being and ii) does not address obvious contradictions.
- Second plea in law, alleging violation of the democratic process as the Commission:
o Does not provide legal reasons for its refusal to transmit the applicants’ proposal to the
Parliament;
o Misunderstands the requirements of Regulation Nº 211/2011 and maintains a
monopoly of the legislative process contrary to the provisions of the Treaties on the
institutional dialogue;
o Does not set out its legal and political conclusions separately as required by Regulation
No 211/2011.
- Third plea in law, alleging non-conformity of Regulation No 211/2011 with the Treaties.
The applicants allege that:
o The objectives of the Lisbon Treaty to improve the institutions’ democratic legitimacy
and to encourage the participation of European citizens in the democratic process are
countered if a citizens’ initiative can be dismissed by the Commission for subjective or
arbitrary reasons without being examined by the Parliament;
o The rule of law is infringed if the Commission’s decision is not subject to legal review.
Nowadays, One of Us initiative is waiting for the ruling of the court on this matter, but
so far, the Commission has recognized that perhaps the response to One of Us
initiative does not contemplate other possibilities of discussion that could be tackled.
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5. Analysis of impressions and suggestions from the organizers.
5.1 Right2Water
Right2Water was the first ECI implemented and successfully finished, achieving the
goal they set for themselves: to be the first organization in making a consultation and
implement the first ECI ever. This was the result of the position of the Trade Union at
the European level, since they called for more democracy (direct democracy) at the
time of drafting the Lisbon Treaty. The organizers were very satisfied to choose the
water as the main subject for the first ECI, since the water is important for the whole
world. They alleged that in the case of Europe it is very important, because millions of
European still do not have access to clean and fresh water.
Mg. Thomas Kattnig, Member of the European Economic and Social Committee and
Member of the EPSU Coordination Group for the ECI Right2Water, was interviewed for
this analysis (see transcription of the interview in Appendix I). According to him,
Right2Water created a coordination board with 30 to 35 people responsible to
coordinate all the actions in each Member State. The system was created to bring an
efficient response to the actions implemented in every Member State. In this way the
organization could be present on the 28 Member States and face the challenges of
working in 24 different languages. It is important to mention that at that time there was
no experience in the implementation of an ECI from both sides the Commission and
the organizer. So step-by-step the approach was developed following the instructions
on the regulation and implementing the practical and common sense (Kattnig, 2015).
The strategy was to unify efforts locally in each Member State through the Trade Union
organizing campaigns to collect the greatest possible number of signatures. For
example The Austrian Trade Union have 4.500 members working with companies all
over the country. All these 4.500 members were committed to obtain a good number of
signatures for the purpose of a successful ECI. This strategy was repeated in each
Member State.
The ECI procedures brought a lot of difficulties, specially the Internet signature tool,
since neither the Commission nor Right2Water had any experience on the use of this
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tool. At the beginning, the collection was made on paper given that the surrounding of
the Internet service of the Commission was not working. Right2Water decided to use
their own software designed by the Trade Union IT team in Germany and their own
servers. This facilitated the collection process, nevertheless, the delays in the
application of the Internet infrastructure for the online collection brought a fair respond
by the Commission allowing the organizer to extent the period of collection for some
extra months.
Right2Water considers that the hardest part has been the verification process, since
the organizers need to fulfill the compliance of 28 different national legislations in the
process of verification. This makes the work very heavy and complex to satisfy the
requirements.
Right2Water considers that the European Union has raised the democracy value with
an instrument such as the ECI, but they also consider that there is a lot of work to do to
facilitate the citizen participation. They are of the view that the Commission has been
working professionally and the Commission is open to receive evaluations for the
organizers, that is why the evaluations need to be considered important to really
improve the ECI tool.
5.2 One of Us
One of Us’ structure and campaign strategy was formed in a pyramidal way, where
there was a European coordinator that oversees the national coordinators in each
Member State. These national coordinators should apply their skills, ability and cultural
knowledge in the management of affordable and efficient campaign to provide a
successful outcome. As it was mentioned, the organizers were pro-life NGOs; they are
used to make conferences and campaigns through their national or regional networks
related to issues like non-abortion and other matters.
The strategy was to conglomerate this local knowledge and expertise from different
national organizations in a unique European-wide campaign (the defense of the human
being from the moment of conception until natural death). The essence of this
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campaign was able to agglutinate a very diverse, multicultural and multidisciplinary

group of people for a common goal.
Every national coordinator should work as they were used to work. They were free to
apply the methods and ideas they believed to be more efficient in their culture. It is
known in some countries they were asking other local organizations that agreed with
the statement of the initiative, to raise awareness and support the campaign. The main
difference at this time was the size of the campaigns, which were a European-wide
effort.
The One of Us Executive European Coordinator of interviewed for this work, Dr. Ana
Del Pino, commented that “the ECI, as an instrument is quite complicated” and it is
thus not surprising, that the amount of procedures and contact persons necessary to
make the initiative viable is extensive. An European coordinator for an initiative well
constituted will need to keep contact with at least 28 national coordinators, plus the
Commission, plus the 28 Member States representatives to keep the ball rolling (Del
Pino, 2015) (see transcription of the interview in Appendix II).
The verification and certification process has been the most complicated task to
organize. This is a task that is on the responsibility of the Member States. They are
free to make the verification and certification process by their national laws and
practices as it is written in the Article 8(2) of the regulation (EU) 211/2011. The
organizer of the initiative must comply with 28 different national procedures to fulfill the
verification process, which involves the creation of a lot of different forms for each
Member State.
One of Us considered the relationship with the Commission officials during the initiative
process as very professional; they have been very patient and their assistance and
workshops offered, contributed in the resolution of a lot doubts and technical problems.
Nevertheless, they consider the communication between the Commission and the
national authorities must be increased. At that time, there were some government
officials who were uninformed or even had no idea about the ECI tool. It is
understandable that the tool was new for all the stakeholders, but there should be a
continued communication between those officials.
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“If the European Commission, which at the end is a governmental institution, impedes
that an instrument under the Treaty of Europe as the European Citizens' Initiative (by
the way, the most votes in Europe) can not even be discussed, in fact that democratic
instrument as such, does not exist”, expressed Dr. Ana Del Pino (Del Pino, 2015).
One of Us considers that the results of current answered ECIs generate

discouragement and apathy in the European citizens since the tool is not fulfilling the
minimal objectives expected for more than one million citizens, to be heard by the
competent authority in the matter that they have presented.
5.3 Common points of view from both ECI organizers
1.- The common denominator for both of the ECI studied for this work (Right2Water
and One of US), is the importance to build a structure or network that allows them to
get the support of the citizens in each of the EU Member States or at least in the
minimum number required by the ECI regulation, which is 7 countries. They consider
that trying to start an initiative without a network, unfortunately will not get the expected
results.
2.- The structure used in both initiatives was a hierarchical and pyramidal management
from a regional, national, namely the position of a national coordinator, and then the
EU coordination.
3.- There is a wish from both initiatives to revise and consider the unification of criteria
in the verification process and certification, since as to the date hereof the process is
made by the Member States in accordance with national law and practice, and this
makes the process really complicated and long.
4.- An important recommendation offered by the interviewed is that the committee of a

potential ECI consultation should prepare the agenda of the ECI before registering it,
because there is a lot of work and relationship to build between the national
coordinator and the central EU Coordination before even initiating the ECI campaign.
The ideal situation is to make teamwork to prepare a project proposal contemplating
time, networking, and economic and human recourses. That is why the
35
recommendation is to have a kickoff meeting to define base elements and connect all
the people involved.
36
6. Analysis of impressions and suggestions from the EC in the same cases

study.
Since April 2012 when the ECI started to be implemented, the Commission has
received a universe of 51 ECI proposal requested. An overview of the status of these
proposals will be described in the following lines.
Out of these 51 requests, 20 ECI registrations were refused on the grounds that they
did not fulfill the conditions laid down in Article 4(2) of the Regulation on the Citizens’
Initiative, which established that in a period of two months the citizens that would like to
register a ECI proposal should fulfill the following requirements:
- Form the citizens’ committee and designate the contact person according to the
Article 3(2).
- They should be aware the ECI proposal does not manifestly fall outside the
framework of the Commission’s powers to submit a proposal for a legal act of the
Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.
- The citizens’ committee may present an initiative proposal is not manifestly
abusive, frivolous or vexatious.
- The ECI proposal should not be manifestly contrary to the values of the Union as
set out in the Article 2 TEU.
- The Commission reserves the right to refuse the registration if the conditions laid
down in the paragraph 2 are not met. The Commission shall inform the organizers of
the reasons for such refusal and of all possible judicial and extrajudicial remedies
available to them.
A group of ten ECIs proposals were registered, begun the process, but before they
finished the period of one year to make the collection of their proposals, they were
withdrawn, since they realized they were not able to get the million signatures required.
An interesting aspect is that five of those withdrawn ECIs proposals did not manage to
raise more than 500 Euros support. Other three ECIs raised less than 10.000 Euros
and the last two ECIs proposals raised more than 150.000 Euros. One of these two last
ECIs obtain more than 293.000 signatures the ECI title was EU Directive on Dairy Cow
Welfare, the other ECI title was Kündigung Personenfreizügigkeit Schweiz,
37
unfortunately, it was not possible to get information related how many signatures this
ECI collected.
Another group of 15 ECIs proposals were registered and finished the period of
collection of signatures with an insufficient support.
Currently, for three ECIs proposals the collection process is ongoing.
There is one ECI proposal that has finished its collection process with more than one
million signatures, called “Stop vivisection” its Citizens’ committee was in the hearing
with the EC and the European Parliament and the current status is waiting answer after
the Commission examination. The answer will be handout on 3 June 2015.
The last groups are two ECI proposals that culminated the whole process, submitted
more than one million signatures and they have had their hearing with the EC and the
European Parliament, and additionally they have received an answer from the EC
related to the ECI proposals.
The names of these two ECI that have fulfilled the whole process, as it is already
known are Right2Water and One of Us. This two ECI are the focus of this study.
The first initiative, 'Right2Water', submitted to the Commission on 20 December 2013

called for "legislation implementing the human right to water and sanitation as
recognized by the United Nations and promoting the provision of water and sanitation
as essential public services for all".
In accordance with the ECI Regulation, its organizers were received by the
Commission Vice-President in charge of Interinstitutional Relations and representatives
of the relevant Directorate-Generals on 17 February 2014. A public hearing took place
at the European Parliament on the same day.
The Commission's reply was adopted on 19 March 2014. It responds positively to the
requests where the Commission has powers to act under the Treaties and where the
subsidiarity and proportionality principles were respected. As a follow-up to the
'Right2Water' initiative, the Commission has committed to a series of actions, which are
38
being progressively implemented (European Commission, 2014).
The second initiative, 'One of us', called for "the EU to end the financing of activities
which presuppose the destruction of human embryos, in particular in the areas of
research, development aid and public health". It was submitted to the Commission on
28 February 2014. Its organizers were received on 9 April 2014 by the Commissioner
for Research, Innovation and Science and representatives of the relevant Directorate-
Generals. The public hearing in the Parliament took place on 10 April 2014.
On 28 May 2014, the Commission adopted its Communication explaining that it did not
intend to submit a legislative proposal, given that the EU legal framework in place,
which had been recently adopted by the European Parliament and the Council, was
considered to be adequate (European Commission, 2014).
As part of this investigation an interview with Mg. Marie Christine Pironnet, Senior
Administrator at European Commission and Coordinator of the European Citizens’
Team, was conducted with regard to the experience of this body on the general
functioning of the ECI, and in particular the two ECI that received answers. This
interview was focused on procedures, practical work and regulation scopes and it was
very useful to understand both sides of the coin (Pironnet, 2015) (see the transcription
of the interview in Appendix III).
The representative of the Commission expressed that the first two years they had up to
15 ECIs projects simultaneously, which meant they were quite overwhelmed, but
eventually they were able to manage the flow of questions, which at the end were quite
similar. In some cases the organizers have also required IT services with the IT
department of the Commission with the objective to implement the installation of online
collection systems upon request of the organizers.
The Commission has a team of five people dedicated fulltime to support the organizers
of the initiatives. There is a direct contact between the Commission and the ECI
organizers through email or telephone; in addition the Commission answers many
questions through EuropeDirect; which is a platform where citizens can ask questions
related to the European Union either by email or by phone.
39
In relation to the issue of financial sponsorship, the Commission expressed there are
no limitations concerning to the type of donors. The donors could be citizens, NGOs,
companies or firms. The important thing is that every financial contribution be done
under the principle of transparency. The organizers must indicate all sources of funding
and support that are higher than 500 Euros, and this should be stated annually by
describing the donors. The aid in goods should also be indicated; in this case it should
provide an estimate value in Euros of aid received in goods. This information may be
then made public. It is important to mention that the Commission cannot finance or give
money to an Initiative.
If the Initiative continues working after the consultation, the financing post-consultation
do not need to be shown. The Commission will request financial information until the
hearing process is complete. Financing after the hearing in the Parliament and the
Commission shall be an internal process belonging to the Initiative.
With regard to the impact of all the ECI registered and that completed the process, it is
important to see the impact that this instrument may have had on the democracy within
the European Union. After posing the question to the interviewed, in an objective scale
of 1 to 10, the Commission representative considered that the European Union raised
the democracy value with an instrument such as the ECI to a value around 7, since she
recognizes there is still space for improving the regulation. Actually, in this summer
2015 they are listening to all parties involved with the intention to evaluate and improve
some changes. The European Parliament, the consultative committees, the European
Ombudsman are integrated in the discussion and after that it is likely that at the end of
year the Commission may propose some measures.
The European Citizens' Initiative enables the EU citizens to address the European
institutions and requests them to examine a subject that seems important for these
citizens by the Commission. But the framework of the process is limited to the scope of
the competence of the Commission. In other words, the Commission can adopt a
legislative act only if the matter of the initiative proposal falls into its competence.
The Commission considers that the right of initiative belongs to the Commission, the
European Parliament is already involved with the public hearing, the EP members must
40
support or reject the Initiative proposal. If the majority of the parliamentarians have an
opinion in favor of the initiative, this is sent back to the Commission and is the
Commission who will make the decision to make a legislative proposal or not.
In relation to the electronic services in favor to the ECI, there are two major electronics
components functioning for the Citizens' Initiative. First, the public registry service,
which is online, this register is managed by the Commission to provide general
information to the initiatives, at the same time it keeps online the information and status
of all proposed citizens' initiatives. Second, the Commission offers to the organizers of
an ECI the possibility of doing online collection of statements of support for a citizens'
initiative. It is important to mention that the administration of the ECI website and the
online collection process is the responsibility of the ECI organizer, while the regulation
lays down rules on online collection systems and their technical specifications.
The Commission actively supports the online connection offering open-source software
that allows the collection of statements of support online. The software has been
developed in accordance with the provisions of the regulations. In addition, the
Commission, stepping beyond its obligations under the regulations, provided hosting
for online collection systems for the organizers who wish to be hosted by the
Commission. This hosting service offers the support of the Commission IT experts
throughout the Lifecycle Initiatives.
From the 31 initiatives registered so far, 21 have used the system for collecting online,
and three initiatives have, so far, managed to collect more than one million signatures.
These three ECIs have collected around 55% of the signatures online.
The Commission representative emphasized how important it is for the Initiative

organizers to begin the preparations for the online collection system with enough time
before proposing the initiative, so they could start the collection process before the
beginning the ECI period (twelve months), which it is vital for the Initiative.
The Commission has provided connections to social networks through the online
collection system. Additionally the Commission is working on new technology solutions
for other platforms such as mobile phones and tablets that may be used in the future.
41
The Commission representative also commented that the citizens could request
consultation through EuropeDirect, which is a platform specialized to answer question
on issues related to the EU competences through phone calls or email.
With regards to the verification process, which is an issue that both of the ECI
organizer that were interviewed referred to, this is the most difficult task in the ECI
process, since every Member State has its own law to apply the verification
requirements.
According to the Regulation, the signatories have to fulfill the requirement of a link of
nationality or residence with a given Member State and provide personal data; this
allows the Member State to verify its statements of support. These requirements vary
from one Member State to another. These divergences prevent some EU citizens from
being able to support a citizens' initiative. This situation has generated criticism and
frustration among organizers and signatories, many of them considering that the
difference of treatment and the high amount of personal data required by some
Member States, including sometimes a personal identification number, could deter
many citizens from giving their support. For Example, Austria has not a personal
identification number such as Spain (National Identity Document). In the case of
Estonia many of the citizens have the Russian nationality, since Russia is not a EU
Member State the signatures of those citizens did not count in the ECI process.
The Commission representative has expressed that the Commission is well aware of
this situation. At the time when the ECI process was designed, the idea was to simplify
and homologate a unique verification process, but in the discussions with the Member
States representatives, there was no consensus on this topic, generating the actual
verification process. The Commission has been trying to improve the verification
process by delegated acts.
The delegated acts are a new category of legal acts created in the Treaty of Lisbon.
The legislator delegates the power to adopt acts amending non-essential elements of a
legislative act to the Commission. In other words, a delegated act is a delegation of
power for specific and technical issues in internal regulations to the Commission by the
EP and the Council. These changes are presented in Parliament and the Council, they
42
have 20 days to make their objections or keep silent, which is interpreted as

approbation (European Commission, 2010).
In order to assist Member States in their verification process, the Commission has
developed a validation tool under the Interoperability Solutions for European Public
Administrations Programme (ISA). It has been developed on the basis of an existing
tool already developed by the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik
(BSI) – German Federal Office for Information Security, the German competent
authority.
In March 2015, the European Commission issued a Report to the European Parliament
and the Council on the application of Regulation EU Nº211/2011 on the citizens’
initiative (European Commission, 2015). This Report was presented according to
Article 22 of the Regulation on the citizens' initiative, and should continue to be issued
every three years thereafter.
According to the before mentioned Report, the Commission has made a great effort to
encourage Member States to simplify their requirements. Several Member States have
already responded positively to the Commission's calls for simplification. A modification
of Annex III, which entered into force on 8 October 2013, contained changes
suggested by Spain, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia. In
particular, the Netherlands opened the possibility for Dutch nationals living outside the
Netherlands to give their support on a Dutch form, and Spain the possibility for non-
Spanish EU citizens residing in Spain to give their support on a Spanish form, thus
reducing the number of citizens excluded from their right to support an initiative. A
second modification, which was adopted by the Commission in March 2015 and after
having been scrutinized by the European Parliament and the Council, the Commission
has adopted delegated acts in the simplification of the verification process in three
countries Malta, Sweden and Czech Republic.
One of the main issues it is that some Member States do not have a national
identification document and this hampers the simplification process. On the other hand,
the Commission understands the difficulties each Member State has to face on
possible changes to simplify the process. Some Member States are considering having
a single European identification number when a citizen wishes to sign some ECI, they
43
would will able to do so through this European Identification Number. The European
Parliament has talked about the possibility to implement that option; for now is only a
thought that may become a fact in a matter of time.
When the Commission does a delegated act it must do the translations in all official
languages of the European Union with all the specifications and requests made by
each Member State. A simplification of the verification process in a single form could
also benefit the internal process in the Commission.
Nevertheless, the Commission omitted several other aspects that could have made the
ECI more “user friendly”. The Commission clearly underestimated the need for
administrative and political back-up functions for the initiative steps like advisory
services especially around registration. In fact, the draft proposal provide for one officer
and one assistant to deal with all the related functions – which truly could be called a
seriously understaffed back-office. Also the idea of financial support to organizers was
not considered. However, the regulation only proposed a requirement for the financial
transparency for all organizers, who will be expected to indicate all their sources of
funding and support at the time of registration (Kaufmann, 2012, p. 235).
The Commission recognizes there is still room for improvement of the ECI, considering
this there is no doubt that the Commission is going to performing periodically
evaluations on the ECI functioning, with the aim to introduce upgrades into the tool.
Even more when these improvements will originate mayor level of participation of EU
citizens and therefore a mayor direct democracy in the EU.
44
7. Conclusions and proposal of possible measures to increase the citizen

participation in the use of their rights as EU citizen, with the application of the
European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI).
The main goal of this analysis has been to evaluate the general functioning of the ECI
as a means for citizen participation and determine potential measures to increase this
participation. Chapter 3 has described the legal basis of the ECI, while the focus of
Chapter 4 has been put on the first two ECI answered by the Commission. Chapter 5
has analyzed impressions and suggestions from the ECI organizers, bringing a very
fruitful and a high level practical perspective. Chapter 6 on the other hand, has offered
the impressions from the EC with answered some question with dynamism and
professionalism. After compiling and analyzing all these substantive elements, this
Chapter has the intention to propose possible ways to strengthen or improve the
functioning of the ECI and the involvement of EU citizens.
The analysis of the first two ECI answered by the Commission have been a great way
to understand the functioning of the ECI and to evaluate possible measures in the use
of this tool, but the analysis will not be complete if it is not observed from the macro
perspective. The following paragraphs and graphics will be addressed from a global
point of view of the application of the ECI as a direct democratic instrument.
The European Commission received 51 requests for registration of proposed Citizens’

Initiatives since its creation in April 2012 until March 2015, as it was mentioned in
Chapter 6. The following graphic shows an overview of that universe of 51 ECI
proposals.
45
Graphic 1: ECIs requested before the European Commission.
Registration refused
Closed initiatives without the

required support
23.53%
39.22% Withdrawn by its organizers
Collection closed
19.61%
Collection ongoing
Answered by the
Commission
5.88% 5.88%
ECI submitted and pending
3.92%
for Commission asnwer
Own illustration based on the figures of the Report on the application of Regulation (EU) N° 211/2011 on the citizens’
initiative, S3, March 2015 (European Commission, 2015).
As it is shown in graphic 1, from 51 ECI proposed only 3 ECI have been submitted to
the Commission, 2 of them have received answer from the Commission and the other
is pending for answer.
To obtain a better understanding, the 20 ECI registration refused were removed in the
following graphic, since they did not start the ECI process. Graphic 2 shows the 31 ECI
that have past the registration process and initiated the consultation, allowing a more
accurate vision.
46
Graphic 2: ECIs registered before the European Commission.
12 Closed initiatives
without the required
support
10 Withdrawn by its
organizers
38.71% 32.26% 3 Collection closed
3 Collection ongoing
2 Answered by the
9.68% Commission
1 ECI submitted and

9.68% pending for Commission
asnwer
6.45%
Own illustration based on the figures of the Report on the application of Regulation (EU) N° 211/2011 on the citizens’
initiative, S3, March 2015 (European Commission, 2015).
From the 31 ECIs registered only three of them have culminated the whole process,
which means 9.6% of the registered ECI. These low results should call for reflection on
the use of this tool by the European citizens.
At first looking at this graphic, it is likely to interpret that the number of twelve closed
initiatives without the required support or the number of ten ECI organizers that
withdraw their consultation are the consequence of the inefficiency or incapacity in the
development of the work of those ECI organizers. But this interpretation can go in the
opposite direction, where the organizers of those ECI might have not finished their
process because of the lack of knowledge of the tool (ECI) by the European citizens. It
is true that the participants or members of an ECI committee need to have a clear
understanding of the competences and functioning of the European Union to be able to
47
make it possible. It is true that they need to have knowledge of the ECI tool. And the
most important point that have been demonstrated by the results of the two ECI that
have been analyzed in this master thesis, Right2Water and One of Us, is that if the ECI
committee of any ECI does not create or integrate a trans-European network, the result
of the initiative is already a failure. In other words, the reason why these two ECI made
their way in a successful manner is that they worked on an already existent
infrastructure of networks and social actors across Europe that allowed them to make
their cause and get the necessary support needed to collect the number of signatures
required.
These elements reduce the scope and opportunity for the citizens to exercise their right
as EU citizens, because if they do not have a network across Europe or high-level
understanding of the European Union functioning they would not be able to propose
any ECI, or this endeavor will be more difficult.
This situation can be illustrated with the case of a housekeeper. This person is an
European citizen, who is confronting daily scenarios in his/her local area and is aware
that this situation is also taking place in other regions of the EU, thus he/she would like
to organize a group of collaborators and form a ECI committee to make a proposal that
will be convenient to face this circumstance. Unfortunately, if this person does not
count with a network of like-minded people and an already existing and stable
infrastructure, he/she and the committee will not be able to make their point and make
it visible for policy makers in order to propose a possible solution for the circumstance.
The following graphic shows another important fact to be analyzed, which is the
number of ECI registered per year.
48
Graphic 3: Number of ECIs registered per year.
18
16
16
14
12
10 9
8
6 5
4
2
1
0
Year 2012 Year 2013 Year 2014 Year 2015
Own illustration, source (European Commission, 2014).
In 2012 the ECI started to be implemented for the first time, it was a great excitement,
the EU citizens found in the ECI a channel to solve some of the issues that were of
concern for them, so a number of 16 ECIs were registered. The following year (2013)
another nine ECIs were registered, in 2014 another five ECIs were registered and in
2015 only one ECI was registered. The speedy falling in the registration of ECIs has
been an obstreperous result. This is alarming, since a continuous decline like this may
end up in zero initiatives in the years to come. This could be interpreted as EU citizens’
lack of interest in the ECI tool, either by the difficulties the citizens have to face to fulfill
the ECI or could also be interpreted in a way that the instrument has been designed to
be used only for a small group of learned people, or even going beyond, by the few
results the answered ECI have obtained. In any case, it is important to analyze the
causes for this trend and the sooner the better, in order to find measures to revert the
situation.
49
7.1 Possible measures to enhance the application of the European Citizens’

Initiative.
One overarching measure that could be implemented is the strengthening of the

European values at all the society levels, promoting education related to the
functioning of the democratic tools that EU citizens have on hand, in particular the ECI,
and creating awareness in the citizenship is essential for them to exercise their right to
participate in the EU matters through a tool such as the ECI. This should be seen in
addition to the already existent EU programs that aim at strengthening democracy and
public participation.
The lack of knowledge or education in the use of the ECI alienates the intention of the
citizens. The weaknesses of the ECI should be seen as an opportunity to increase a
major participation or more active action of the EU citizens in the ECI, by developing a
strategy to strengthen the ECI tool, which will be elaborated later on this Section.
One of the important recommendations offered by one of interviewers to the citizens’

committee of a potential ECI consultation is to prepare the agenda of the potential ECI
before registering it, at the same time to prioritize the conformation of a team at the EU
level and additionally in each of the Member States or at least in seven of them
according to the ECI regulation.
Since there are a lot of work and relationships to build between the team members the
suggestion made by both of the interviewed ECI organizers was to establish the
positions of ECI National Coordinators and ECI EU Coordinator to handle more
efficiently the ECI. The ideal situation is to make the team before the registration of the
ECI to prepare project proposal contemplated time, networking, and economic and
human resources. That is why the recommendation is to have a kickoff meeting to
define base elements and everyone could connect and be on the same track.
The EU Coordinator should keep constant contact with the EU Commission and
National Coordinators. The best way to handle the EU central coordination of the ECI
is keeping a general view of the national efforts being undertaken in order to gather the
required support and to become motivator and promoter of those efforts. On the other
hand, the national coordinators established on each Member State is in whom the
50
responsibility lies of raising the necessary signatures that will be delivered to the
central office to be counted as the total EU result. The national coordinators will keep
contact with their team members, the signatories, the national authorities and the EU
Coordinator of the ECI.
With regard to the functioning of the website that the EC has dedicated to the ECI, it
can be said that this website shows the effort made by the Commission to consolidate
all the ECI information in a webpage that could be fresh and friendly for the users. It
shows the status of the ECIs and then clicking on the names of the ECI proposals it
brings the users to the own website of the ECI proposed. These are convenient
features, despite the limited competence the European Commission has in the
preparation or participation of the ECI.
As for the collection of signatures, the research, the interviews and the analysis have
shown that the actual collection process is working in an acceptable manner and the
use of electronic collection and the paper collection have been useful. The application
of both collection methods has demonstrated the tastes and trends of the signatories,
where some prefer to sign electronically and others prefer a classical signature on
paper.
The EC Report on the application of Regulation (EU) N° 211/2011 on the citizens’

initiative shows that around 80% of the statements of support collected by Right2Water
was collected online, while One of Us collected 30% online (European Commission,
2015). This can be seen as very positive, since it could envision an increase of the use
of the online signature component.
Another measure proposed in this paper to help enhance the ECI functioning is the
establishment of an independent electronic platform (website and a computer
application) able to show a specific section where the users could watch all the open
initiatives, read their statements of support without changing the page and within a
couple of clicks they could make their decision in multiple open ECI of their choice. In
other words, it should be a page where all open initiatives are displayed in a list with
their statements of support and the users are able to make their decisions considering
in which ECI they would like to participate or support. This application should be
available also in smartphones, tablets and other portables devices to be watched by
51
the users, offering in this way the opportunity to the European citizens’ to express their
right of participation in the ECI in a very convenient way.
What if an independent institution is created in order to facilitate the electronic platform

as described in the last paragraph? An institution that would facilitate an electronic
platform capable to be used in portable devices, displaying a unique page where the
open ECIs are listed with their statements of support and the European Citizens’ could
make their election to click and make a signature in more than one ECI proposals as
their preference. And what if additionally, this independent institution would offer
consulting to citizens’ who have ideas to propose an ECI, but they are lacking of
human resources, capital and network in other Member States to fulfill their ECI
proposal.
This institution should be independent, but be established with the consent of the
Commission and the Member States. The institution proposed may act as a
decentralized agency to facilitate consulting to ECI proposers. Most importantly, this
agency should has the particularity of being the first decentralized agency that is going
to share decision-making process with the civil society.
The European Union’s agencies are public authorities established under European law,
(secondary legislation) and enjoying their own legal personality. Until now, the EU
agencies have been directed by the European Commission and the Member States.
The current 31 EU decentralized agencies have the task of technical or scientific
nature or a specific management task specified in the corresponding act. For example:
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) which was created
by Regulation (EC) 851/2004.
The proposed decentralized agency should offer the EU citizens the opportunity to
participate in the democratic life of the Union, exercising their right to participate in the
decision-making process according to Article 10(3) of the TEU.
The proposed name for the decentralized agency is Agency for the Promotion of the
European Citizen Initiative (APECI), with headquarters in Vienna, Austria.
52
ACEPI may count with a General Director and a multidisciplinary professional team of
up to 30 people, who shall exercise the administrative and operational functions of the
institution. The General Director should be appointed by the Council of Ministries. The
General Director may be subordinate to the Board of Counselors.
The Board of Counselors is comprised by 16 people, one representavive of the

European Commission and one representative of the European Parliament; the other
fourteen Counselors must be members of the civil society. They must be professionals
with proven track records and experience in the areas required for the development of
ACEPI. They must be expert professionals in fields such as IT, law, economics,
administration, marketing, advertising, EU translators and others. The Counselors may
be elected by the national intitutions such as trade unions in their professional fields.
The number of Counselors must not exceed half of the Member States of the EU, in
other words no more than fourteen people. The fourteen people may come from
different EU Member States, they should hold the Counselor position for a period of
two years. Then, the following two years, another fourteen professional from the other
fourteen Member States may be holding the Couselor position. The election of the
Member State may be by alphabetical order.
The Counselors will not earn wages; they must offer their expertise ad honorem in
contribution to the advancement of society, but their travel and subsistence expenses
must be carried by ACEPI. The Counselors must act as advisers to help draw the
guidelines for the funtioning of ACEPI.
The Counselors shall meet at least once per quarter and not more than seven times a
year to evaluate its labor and draw new parameters in order to ensure the proper
functioning of ACEPI.
The objective of ACEPI should be to install the basic infrastructure in the EU to support
potential ECI organizers.
ACEPI may have the following functions, which will be further elaborated in the text:
- Create and administrate an electronic platform.
53
- Offer the necessary assistance without interfering in the procedural steps taken by the
ECI organizers, as set out in the ECI Regulation.
- Create and spread awareness of the European values and awareness of the
importance and uniqueness of such a democratic instrument as the ECI.
- Widen the sources of financial support to the initiatives through relevant sponsors.
7.2. The Electronic Platform
The electronic platform should have the particularity of showing the open ECIs in a list
that could be read in the 24 languages of the EU; it should include the name of the
ECI, statements of support and it could be able to show the names and logos of at
least three of the organizations or persons that have been sponsoring the ECI; finally it
should have a link that allows the users to open a new window where all the sponsors
for that ECI are shown.
As it was mentioned before, the reason why Right2Water and One of Us made their
way in a successful manner is that they worked on an already existent infrastructure of
networks and social actors across Europe that allowed them to make their cause and
get the necessary support to collect the number of signatures required. That is why it is
so important to have a basic and permanent infrastructure able to assist the ECIs.
Table 2 below will display an example of how the electronic platform web page may
look like. The names of the open ECIs appear with their statement of support. As soon
the cursor mouse is on the statement of support it will open a small window showing
the entire statements of support. Additionally there is a dynamic window showing the
logo of the sponsors of the ECI, this window should include a bottom to go direct to the
whole list of sponsors. Another window will allow the users to click and make their
electronic signature through a check box in each of the ECI of their preference.
For the users to be able to do this, they should be registered on the platform with all
the required information following the rules of the ECI regulation and the national laws
of the Member State where they live or come from. The data based of each ECI must
be confidential information that may be shared only with the ECI organizers, the
Commission and the Member States involved in the verification of signature.
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Table 4: Basic example of the open ECI list
ECI Names Statement of Support Sponsors ECI Signature

Right2water Water is a public good, not a of Spnsors
commodity. We invite the Click to sign
European Commission to
propose legislation ...
List of Sponsors
One of us The unconditional
recognition of the inherent Click to sign
and inalienable human List of Sponsors
dignity as a source of hu.. List of Sponsors
Own illustration.
7.3. Consulting offered by ACEPI
The assistance offered by the ACEPI previously described may be in relation with the
principle and values that may content the potential statement of support of an ECI.
ACEPI may guide the ECI organizers to present a statement of support that contains
the European values, at the same time it is coherent with the principles of the internal
market and in case the ECI proposed could affect economically some individual or
companies in a specific field, ACEPI should collaborate to fulfill a strong argumentation
on it.
In any case, ACEPI should not interfere in the procedural steps taken by the ECI
organizers. It is important to say that the ECI Regulation establishes in Article 2(3) that
the ECI organizers are responsible for the preparation of a Citizens’ Initiative, but the
Regulation does not impede that a third person may offer support to the ECI for
example in policy and technical aspects.
55
7.4. Creation of awareness of the European values and ECI unique value
The following statement of Simon Bolivar defines pretty well which should be the
intention of this task. “The most valuable instrument for the preservation and defense
of liberty is a University capable of forming free men to lead collective life in pursuit of
the common good”. Although ACEPI should not be a university, it should cooperate
and facilitate educational tools at all the levels of the society across the EU. It may be
able to make simple tools for kids, students, workers, housekeepers and professionals
to have a better understanding and awareness of the European Union, the functioning
of its institutions and the functioning of the available democratic tools at disposal of the
EU citizens, such as the ECI.
The European Union has made a great effort and impact on its citizens in different
areas of their lives and is still working in the consolidation of European Union basic
principles and values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the
rule of law and respect for human rights in a society where pluralism, non
discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity between women and men prevail as it is
established in the Treaty on the European Union, title I Common Provisions, article 2.
Graphic 3 showed the number of ECI registered per year. The presumption made in
this regard is the EU citizens’ lack of interest in the ECI tool by not knowing how to use
it or because even they do not know the existence of it and the benefits this instrument
could bring to their daily life. The best way to solve that circumstance is through the
creation of a continuous campaign to raise awareness in the European values able to
impact the citizens across Europe. In the use the social media, traditional media,
training program in in the street, schools, and universities.
7.5. Widening the range of financial resources
The finances are a factor that can disrupt the achieving of an initiative; although the
two examples already analyzed, Right2Water and One of Us, did not spent a big
amount of funds, these were possible for the strong infrastructure they have behind. In
the case of Right2Water, they declared expenses of 140.000 Euros and One of Us
declared 159.219 Euros. Those amounts are not a huge amount of money compared
to all the work that they have developed. It is imaginable that there are some man-hour
56
and use of equipments that were not included in those numbers, since the organizers
and sponsors did not expect any other reward than the fulfillment of the ECI, so may be
other cost were covered by their own.
But the initiatives that do not count with infrastructure behind them will need much
more amount of financial resources to fulfill the objectives, unless the infrastructure is
already set up to support the initiative. This is where ACEPI comes to play a role. This
organization could facilitate the required infrastructure for the ECI and additionally form
a multidisciplinary team of professionals to work on a project to raise funds for each
initiative. They may be members in the team coming from the fields of marketing and
advertising to help to consolidate campaigns for each initiative with the objective to
recruit volunteers and sponsors willing to support the statement of an ECI with the goal
to fulfill the required number of signatures. The funds raised by the ACEPI may be
used for the operational cost of each ECI. In case that at the end of the ECI period
there is still remain of funds, which could be transferred to a budget for the continuous
campaigns to raise the European value.
In brief, the organizers of an ECI should count on an infrastructure encompassing all

the details above mentioned, including the IT support and the financial support, as well
as other important elements as a translation team for the 24 languages of the EU, and
a multidisciplinary team to make possible an ECI.
Back to the question of the collection process, observing the network of citizens who
formed both of the ECI it is possible to make some assumptions that allow some
predictions of which signature collection method should be more efficient to get a better
result in future consultation. This prediction could be made by analyzing the main
population where the ECI committee will focus their strength. This population is not
related to the geographical point of view, but rather based on the behaviors and
preferences of the individuals who make up that population, what unites them, those
principles or similarities that allow them to meet in specific places for the same
purposes. It will be easier to see it with examples.
In the case of the ECI Right2Water the statements of support collected on paper were
around 20% and the statement of support collected online was around 80%. The
organizers of this ECI were the EU Trade Unions, big networks of governmental
57
workers unified by their trade unions in different 28 Member States. They share
corporate governance, attitudes, formation, behaviors and preferences, despite the
multicultural differences that characterize the EU. It could be predicted that the Staff,
which are working most of the time sitting in front of their computers, will decide to
support the initiative online. On the other hand, the workers usually are more related to
outdoor activities or positions that involve more face to face relation, then it should be
easier to support the initiative on paper. Additionally, it is important to count friends and
family members, who will be influenced by the suggestion of the ECI promoters.
In the case of the ECI One of Us the statements of support collected on paper
amounted around 70% and the statement of support collected online was around 30%.
The organizers of this ECI were the NGOs ProLife, a big network of civil society that
share same principles and values. Additionally, the contribution of religious
organizations, most of them Christian institutions around Europe made their
contribution to the collection of these signatures. Since, this type of organizations
invest time in seminars, conferences and regular basic meeting every week, it could be
predicted the most effective collection process will be on paper. This people share time
together and for them it easier a face-to-face contact. The EC facilitated open software
as a tool that helps the ECI organizer to make the electronic collection in their own
websites.
Nevertheless there are situations where some citizens have not been able to support
ECIs due to diverging Member States' requirements. The Commission has been
involved in constructive discussions with the Member States concerned to address
those issues and has adopted measures to facilitate a resolution. The EC Report on
the application of Regulation (EU) N° 211/2011 acknowledges that there is still room to
improve the process and identifies a number of possible issues for further discussion
with stakeholders and institutions. The Commission continues its efforts to encourage
Member States to simplify their requirements (European Commission, 2015).
The experiences of the couple of ECI answered by the European Commission

demonstrated that the fulfillment of the one million signatures and the hearing of the
Commission and EP is just the beginning of the work that the organizers have to
undertake, and many meetings and discussions with the EP and the National
Parliament will be necessary in order to keep alive the proposed law project.
58
The last measure that can be proposed in this master thesis for those initiatives which
successfully culminated the collection process and all the steps leading to the public
hearing by the EC and the EP is the creation of an agenda post consultation, which is
crucial for the desired success. This means that after the hearing in the EC and EP the
organizers must keep the pace, raising awareness through, inter alia, and civil society.
At the same time they must organize meetings with the parliamentarians of their
nationals parliaments in the 28 Member States to consolidate the message of the
Initiative, as one voice. They should not give up until the main objective of the potential
law project that originated the ECI could be proposed by the Commission and accepted
by the Council and the EP.
It is important not to forget the main objective of the ECI: the approval of the law act
that originates from the ECI consultation. The experience has shown that the
volunteers and the ECI committee work really hard to get the million signatures, but
afterwards the organizers take the rest of the tasks easy, not realizing that the work
just began. It is up to the organizers to raise awareness of the work involved from the
start of the initiative and to set priorities through the whole process keeping the pace to
obtain the final expected result. However, it is finally up to the EU institutions in general
and the Commission in particular how much success it grants for an ECI passing the
one million threshold.
The core results of the research confirm the hypothesis set out that the ECI is currently
underutilized thus it is neither impacting to a big extend citizen participation in the use
of their rights as EU citizens nor reaching its full potential. The previously
recommended measures can be considered in order to strengthen the functioning of
the ECI and its impact on the citizen participation in the European Union. The proposed
Agency for the Promotion of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ACEPI), as well as the
proposed electronic platform along with other measures can be of help to achieve the
aim of helping an ECI to reach a good conclusion.
59
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9. APPENDIX.
Appendix I
Interview made to Mg. Thomas KATTNIG,

Member of the European Economic and Social Committee
and
Member of the EPSU Coordination Group for the ECI Right2Water.
(original language: English)
1.- How do you feel as Member of this organization and what are the new
objectives after the results of the initiative?
The feeling was very good, because it was the first Initiative implemented on the
Euroepan Citizens’ Initiative at all. Additionally it was successful.
2.- Was it a hard work to achieve such a great result?
Off course, it was really hard to connect all the people, since it was important to be
present on the 28 Member States, for the 24 different languages and to approach the
people. But at the end it was more or less successful, we will continue working on .
3.- How many people participate in the whole process?
In the Organization we have a board in the European Level there was more or less 24
people. But we have a network on the 28 Member States, so I think the core group was
around 30 people responsible to coordinate all the action in each Member State. Than
in the Member State is difficult to give a figure. In our Trade Union in Austria we have
4.500 people working with the Trade Union, with the companies all over the country
and they supported, so in fact, thousand of people worked for that. But the coordination
was made for a small group 30 to 35 people and top down the system and back to the
top.
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4.- The time frame for the signature collection, was it sufficient?
We were the first ECI and at that time there were a lot of organizational problems,
because the Commission did not has experience, the Internet signature tool was not
working, the surrounding of the service was not working, we have the possibility to
collect the signatures in paper, but not by Internet, so the Commission extended the
time for the collection we started in April and the we finish in October 2014. It was fear,
since the problem that we were having. At that time there were not experience from
both side the Commission and from us, so step by step we developed the approach
being the pioneers. We as the Trade Union said that we want to be the first in
implement the ECI. In fact we the Trade Union at the European Level called for more
democracy, direct democracy at the time of the Lisbon Treaty was a draft. One of our
main topic was the ECI, as soon the Lisbon Treaty was ratified it was clear for us that
we must we the first organization in make a consultation and implemented the first ECI.
We are glad for the topic that we decided since the water is important for the whole
world, for us as European it is very important, because millions of European still do not
have clean and fresh water.
5.- Do you consider that the European Union raised the democracy values with
an instrument such as the ECI?
Yes of course. It could be better, we are in a currently situation there is a report in the
EU Parliament to respond regarding our ECI and in 2016 it will be a evaluation of the
ECI tool because there are some problems, so we are going to have the opportunity to
evaluate it. But in overall it is really useful step to get more involvement of the citizen.
The Commission is open to receive our evaluation as a users of the tool. For example
we face some problems in the partitipation of some Member States, since in EU you
have an European framework on the European Level like the ECI regulation and the
surroanding legislations, but in every single EU Member State there are special laws
on how the ECI take place in each country. In the case of United Kimdom the citizen
where allowed to participate in the ECI only if they were residents in the Country. In the
case that UK citizen is resident in Austria he may not be able to be counted in the UK
and he may not be able to counted in Austria since he is not an inhabitant from Austria.
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That’s the problem when exit 28 different legislation, this is the reason we need just
one umbrella legislation and same approach for the all EU Member States. That’s why
evaluation is so important to improve the ECI.
6.- What would you say regarding the right the EC has to accept or reject any
initiative?
In fact, I think it is important to have an adaptation because, there is not the right to
regulate the for a European level for all sectors of EU policies, so it is necessary to
evaluate which topic should an ECI approach. If there is not reponsability or right for a
European legisletion maker on that issue. So it is important if the topic is for an
European level or is just a legislation for a several Member States.
7.- Would you consider much more direct democracy if the right to accept or
reject an initiative would be in the hands of the EP and the Council of Ministers?
That could be a solution to put in all legislation settle on European level the Consul, the
EU Paliament and the Commission.
I’m not sure if coul be really possible because it is a little bit complicated, since we
have so far 40 or 50 Initiatives are running and so.. It could be .. it could be a solution
for more democracy.
8.- Are you satisfied with the ECI process and the methodology that is
implemented?
There were a lot of problems, but in the mean time those problems were resulted.
What I heard from another Initiatives as the most common problem they are facing is
related with not network for them in the 28 Member States, the translation process, etc.
Based in our experience a broad network in Europe is an important key issue, you
need to create the structure and you need people engage to that, and then you have to
approach people to be successful in the Initiative.
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9.- Imagine the Commission calls you as adviser to implement some adjustments
in the ECI process from A to Z, what would be the priority areas that you would
consider?
It is necessary to have a common verification process in the 28 EU Members States. I

believe it will be necessary to get more binding measures by the Commission and the
European Legislators, since today if you have a valid ECI you get the hearing by the
Commission and the European Parliament and that is it.
There are certain amounts of work in preparing an ECI for such a small result. We
need more binding measures for the Commission to make legislation.
10.- What are the lessons learnt and those mistakes that you will not repeat?
That is a good question, in fact we were more or less successful, since we reached the
required signatures, we have the hearing and put pressure in the Commission and now
we received an Initiatives Report by the European Parliament on securing high quality
drinking water and sanitation. In that fact, we were more or less in a good way. In the
other hand, for example free trade agreement there are not exemptions for water and
sanitation, that’s for we do not feel totally successful, since we demanded that and we
called the Commission to take water and sanitation out the free trade agreement, but
they didn’t do that. So it was more or less good.
We are in a situation where we need to continue our effort to fulfill our objectives. It is
very important to encourage your people to continue the effort, since it is not enough to
collect one million signatures, it will be well done if you reach the goal. So, you need to
keep the pressure high.
We have one victory during the signature collection, if you remember, the
Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market wanted to liberate the prices of water
and sanitation through concessions, but the pressured was so huge through the ECI
that the Commissioner decided during the legislation process to take out water and
sanitation from the concessions and not liberate them. In fact, that was a big victory for
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us. But then, they are trying to liberate them one more time and we need to continue
working on it.
The lesson learnt is to keep the pressure high after the hearing until you obtain the
expected results.
11.- Could you please tell me about the raising fund process for the initiative,
was it hard to make it?
Actually, it wasn’t really expense. For example in Austria we didn’t expend something
more then 20.000 euros. Even this is a lot of money off course! For such a campaign is
not really much. So, I consider the ECI is a very good tool if you have a network and
the investment that you need to do is for some material for the campaign such as info
stand, brochures, etc. Well, in our case we have the support of the Trade Union and
that help a lot, it is one of the advantages when you have a network.
12.- How much do you consider a good amount to cover all the costs for a good
campaign?
That is a difficult answer; I don’t really know how much it could be.
13.- Are deadlines well defined or do you consider some changes should be
done?
14.- Did you use the software suggested by the Commission to do the signatures
collection?
No, we used our own software; since we have IT expert in the Trade Union they
facilitated a tool for that.
15.- What was the percentage between electronic and manual signatures
collected?
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Yes, we had around 80% of the collected signatures by electronic component and
around 20% of the collected signatures by paper. There you could see how important
was for us to have the electronic system in place.
16.- Do you think the ECI should have a major electronic component to get better
results?
I think it will be really worth for small organization, for them it will be really important.
Usually they don’t have the finance or the expert to fulfill the minimum requirement. For
example the language tool, website design; voting tool, it could be really expense for a
small organization.
17.- Do you consider that the actual ECI normative allows the implementation of
new technologies platforms?
Do you mean like social network? Yes there is no problem. In our case we where
supported by social networks such as Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn. Those platforms
offered us the opportunity to send a message, especially to young people, since they
are familiar with the social media. It was good for the initiative the social media
facilitate us to spread the message.
18.- What happen when some doubts appeared? Was the Commission able to
answer all your questions or some of your questions where out of their scope?
In fact, we were working really hard to follow up what was demanded. The questions
were really focused on where there is the possibility and reality for the Commission,
Council and European Parliament to make decisions. Actually, it works since we have
received a dinking water directive; we are working in the free trade agreement in the
areas where the Commission could makes legislation proposals. In the other hand the
Commission has not taking out of the free trade agreement water and that is part of our
request. That why we consider that is really important to focus in the competences of
the European Union level and raise questions on this topics. For example: the
European Union in the international level is investing a lot of money in developing
countries, in that area it will be important to raise the question such as what is the
68
European Union doing regarding drinking water and sanitation in places like Africa?
How much money?, which project are you doing? It is important to urge the
Commission to invest the money in project related to water and sanitation.
Through the European Parliament we have a great support, that why we have received
an European Parliament report raising all the questions again to move forward and
make some pressure on the Commission, because the problem we have in Europe is
that the legislation can be only started by the Commission. The Commission has
started to respond our petition step by step, but very slow. That is why we can’t give
up, we need to push forward all the time. That is the lesson we learned, it is not over
after finishing the Consultation of the ECI, actually that is the moment when everything
really start.
19.- Would you consider important to have some kind of external consulting to
solve emerging questions or issues during the initiative process?
Yes, I think that is important especially for small organizations. In fact, we have been in
connection with some ONG and working with them. I personally have been asked
several times for them with questions like what do we have to think to start an ECI?
What is your experience in such issue?, Also I have another interview like yours.
69
Appendix II
Interview made to Dr. Ana Del Pino,

Executive European Coordinator of One of Us European Federation
for Life and Human Dignity,
Promoter of One of Us Initiative.
(original language: Spanish)
1.- Me podría describir un poco cual fue su función en la Iniciativa que ustedes
realizaron?
Mi función a sido la Coordinación Ejecutiva Europea, es decir, buscar los contactos en

cada país y preparar la estrategia de recogida de firmas para que los países la
siguieran. Al mismo tiempo mantener el contacto con la Comisión Europea. En otras
palabras, recibir la información generada por cada país, procesarla y luego enviarla a
la Comisión. Llevando a cabo de esta manera la coordinación ejecutiva de todo el
proceso.
2.- Podría describirme hacia donde focalizaron el esfuerzo para la captación de

firmas, en otras palabras donde buscaron a los firmantes?
Lo que es el procedimiento en si, es como un proceso de votación, lo que lo hace muy

complejo. Dado al gran número de requisitos por parte la Comisión Europea y luego
no se sabe con absoluta seguridad la respuesta que generará la Iniciativa Europea
Ciudadana.
Conociendo esto, nuestra estructura o estrategia formada se basó en contactar a los

movimientos Pro-Vida Europeos, les hemos pedido el compromiso de llevar la
campaña en cada país, conociendo el esfuerzo que hacen en sus países cuando hay
campañas nacionales, como por ejemplo en contra del aborto. Así que lo que se hizo
fue trasladar esos esfuerzos de muchas campaña nacionales a un resultado Europeo,
en otras palabras, lo que se solicito fue abrir este debate, pero a nivel Europeo. En
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vista de que nuestra iniciativa busca la defensa y el respeto que merece la dignidad
humana desde el momento de la concepción, encajaba muy bien con los esfuerzo
acostumbrados por estas organizaciones, que a su vez estuvieron acompañadas de
otras ONG y organizaciones religiosas como la iglesia católica, protestante, ortodoxa.
Había un objetivo común que permitió los esfuerzos de todos.
Lo importante para nosotros fue el tener una estructura que contase con un comité
nacional que aglutinará aquellas entidades sin importar el signo que fuesen, pro-vida,
pro-familia, etc. Pero que coinciden con nosotros en la defensa del ser humano desde
el momento de la concepción hasta a muerte natural y que dentro de ese comité
nacional hubiese un coordinador o persona de contacto, a fin de no duplicar datos.
Estos debían mantener contacto directo con mi persona ejerciendo así mi función de
coordinadora Europea.
Si bien la Unión Europea no tiene competencias en el tema del aborto, hemos

observado que la Unión Europea tiene financiamiento para proyectos de cooperación
al desarrollo y es allí donde identificamos algunos casos que suponen atentar contra la
vida humana desde sus inicios, (embrión humano) a través de la cooperación al
desarrollo o de la investigación.
Adicionalmente hemos celebrado asambleas para darle seguimiento al proceso, tener

una estrategia común y mantenernos informados. Podría decir que en cierta forma ese
fue el éxito de nuestra iniciativa. Hemos podido conocernos todos, entender las
problemáticas en cada país.
Otro aspecto al éxito es, que cuando se habla de derechos fundamentales y se trabaja
en lo que se cree se consiguen los resultados.
El caso de la campaña del agua, conozco al coordinador y sé que ellos básicamente lo

hacían a través de estructuras estables, en su caso los sindicatos de los trabajadores
alrededor de Europa.
3.- ¿Qué tan difícil fue el proceso de recolección de firmas?
71
Fue difícil, muchos requisitos que debían ser cumplidos antes del proceso de
recolección, pero tan pronto se logran esos aspectos, comienza la tarea de
recolección. Durante el proceso también encontramos dificultades, pero al final
logramos recoger 2.010.000 firmas aproximadamente. Al momento de ser revisadas
por las autoridades nacionales, algunas no logran ser consideradas validas, por
distintas razones como por falta información. Por ejemplo, en el caso de Austria
recuerdo que es muy complicado, porque la no tiene un documento de identificación
único, como el caso de España el DNI. Otro caso fue el de Estonia, donde hubo
mucha invalidación de firmas porque muchos ciudadanos estonios tiene al mismo
tiempo la ciudadanía rusa, dado que Rusia no es parte de la Unión Europea estos
ciudadanos no fueron admitidos. Así que al final logramos validar 1.811.000 firmas.
Esto se envió a la Comisión y es la Comisión quien debe decidir si esto pasa o no a
ser discutido en el parlamento.
Para las iniciativas que hoy en día han cumplido con los requisitos e intentan
conseguir recoger el número de firmas requeridas es muy difícil, ya que la
participación y el apoyo mediático es prácticamente cero. En el caso de la iniciativa del
agua y nosotros por ser los primeros hubo cierto entusiasmo por los ciudadanos.
Conozco miembros de otras iniciativas que al final han decidido retirarlas, porque
consideran que todo el esfuerzo no vale la pena.
4.- ¿Cuáles son las lecciones aprendidas y los errores que no repetirían?
Encontramos cierto escepticismo contra las políticas Europeas, mucha gente que esta
desinformada y que siente que la Unión Europea es algo ajeno a ellos, así que
considero que hay que hacer un labor mayor de información. El problema es que la
Iniciativa también se ven afectadas por estos problemas al momento de recolectar las
firmas.
5.- ¿Cuántas personas participan en todo el proceso, en el comité y voluntarios?
72
En cada país teníamos un coordinador así que fueron 28 personas y un gran número
de voluntarios que no sabría decirle con exactitud, pero podría decir que por lo menos
unos 1000 voluntarios entre los 28 países.
He sabido que hubo una gran participación de voluntarios. Se organizaban

conferencias por ejemplo en universidades y los voluntarios se encargaban de
recolectar las firmas en papel y/o en ordenadores.
6.- El plazo para la recolección de firmas, ¿fue suficiente?
El plazo se nos hizo corto, básicamente por ser uno de los primeros en realizar una
Iniciativa Ciudadana Europea. Al mismo tiempo se presentaron unos inconvenientes
con los servidores de la Comisión, para no perjudicarnos extendieron el plazo hasta el
mes de noviembre.
Considero que es importante tener una coordinación central que pueda motivar y
mantener a los países participantes informados. Para los coordinadores nacionales y
sus equipos era muy motivador el conocer las cifras que los otros países llevaban, el
conocer que otros habían logrado la meta mínima los impulsaba a trabajar más fuerte.
Un año va ser suficiente, siempre y cuando la campaña este constituida antes de

iniciar las fechas de recolección, de otro modo el tiempo se queda corto.
Considero que más de un año para una campaña sería perjudicial, porque la gente
perdería el interés y la campaña se enfriaría, recordemos que mucho del trabajo se
hace con voluntarios. Un año es un tiempo prudente.
En nuestro caso se nos fue los primeros 6 meses en crear y consolidar la estructura,
los otros 6 meses fueron de recolección con un arduo trabajo para conseguir los
resultados.
Basada en nuestra experiencia aconsejaría a las próximas Iniciativas preparar el

proyecto de la Iniciativa, constituir la coordinación Europea y las coordinaciones
nacionales antes de comenzar y hacer el lanzamiento común del proceso de
recolección, de manera de tener los 12 meses para recolectar las firmas y lograr
73
culminar la campaña con éxito, para nosotros esta sería la clave.
7.- ¿Está satisfecha con el proceso de ECI y la metodología que se implementó?
En cuanto a las relaciones con la Comisión en lo que se refiere a el instrumento (la

Iniciativa) han sido muy buenas, sinceramente tengo que agradecer a la Comisión la
paciencia, etc. La verdad que en ese sentido a nosotros nos ayudaron mucho, se a
trabajado de manera profesional asistiendo a los responsables de las Iniciativas
explicándoles que tenían que hacer, se realizaron workshop para aclarar dudas, etc.
La verdad es, que el instrumento es complicado, la recolección de firmas online, la

presentación de la iniciativa a las autoridades nacionales, la verificación todo esto es
complicado y el peso de ella cae en los organizadores de la Iniciativa. Por ejemplo si
se tienes un problema de verificación con un país es la Iniciativa quien debe dirigirse a
las autoridades nacionales para solventar dicho problema. En algunos casos nos toco
contactar autoridades nacionales que ni siquiera conocían de la iniciativa, nos tocó
inclusive la tarea informarles al respecto, por ser una de las primeras Iniciativas.
Considero que debería haber una mayor comunicación entre la Comisión y las
autoridades nacionales para dar a conocer mejor el instrumento, muchos funcionarios
que estaban desinformados o desconocían del instrumento. La Comisión como
institución Europea podría mantener informados a las autoridades nacionales los
plazos de inicio y culminación de cada Iniciativa, hubo caso de países que no querían
recibirnos mas firmas porque para ellos el plazo había terminado. Estos pequeños
detalles facilitaría mucho el trabajo de la coordinación de las Iniciativas.
En cuanto a los mecanismo, entiendo que debe haber un control, pero considero que
se podría buscar un equilibrio mayor al que hay, ya que actualmente es exhaustivo,
que al final es agotador, muy riguroso, así que conseguir balancear esto seria muy
positivo.
Como habrás visto, la Comisión nos respondió que “no”, la verdad no quedamos
satisfechos. Básicamente por la forma en que se dio la respuesta y no por fondo, así
que hemos presentado un recurso en el Tribunal Europeo de Justicia.
74
Si la Comisión Europea, quien al final es un órgano de gobierno impide que un

instrumento previsto en el Tratado de Europa como lo es la Iniciativa Ciudadana
Europea, por cierto, la más votada en Europa no pueda ni siquiera ser discutida, pues
en realidad ese instrumento democrático como tal no existe.
El recurso esta presentado porque consideramos que hay un déficit democrático,

cuando precisamente el instrumento fue previsto precisamente para luchar contra el
llamado déficit democrático de la Unión Europea. Actualmente se esta en el
procedimiento judicial, que de momento la Comisión ha reconocido que quizás la
respuesta a nuestra iniciativa no contemplo otras posibilidades de discusión que
podría haber contemplado. Por ahora queda esperar el pronunciamiento del tribunal
para saber lo que va a pasar.
8.- ¿Considera que la Unión Europea logró aumentar el valor de la democracia

con un instrumento como el Iniciativa Ciudadana Europea?
Considero que no. Antes de empezar la campaña la gente tenia muchas expectativas
y se animó a participar, hoy en día con los pocos resultados obtenidos ni siquiera se
están proponiendo nuevas Iniciativas, porque han visto que las que se han presentado
no han tenido ninguna repercusión política. Lo que se espera conseguir después del
apoyo de mas de un millón de firmas de ciudadanos europeos es que el tema al
menos se debata. Ni o con esto intento decir que la Comisión deba hacer lo que la
Iniciativa presenta, ero que por lo menos se habrá un debate político y que los
representantes de los ciudadanos puedan debatir sobre aquello que están pidiendo
me parece que es crucial para que otras Iniciativas o ideas se puedan promover.
9.- ¿Considerarías una democracia mucho más directa, si los firmantes de una
Iniciativa Ciudadana Europea que haya sido rechazada o parcialmente
rechazada, tuviese la posibilidad de presentar su declaración de apoyo al
Parlamento Europeo y al Consejo para ser evaluados directamente por estos.
Facilitando así una segunda opción de analizar la propuesta presentada?
Si considero que debía someterse al Consejo y al Parlamento, para que por lo menos
el tema pueda ser debatido.
75
El foro donde se debaten los requerimientos ciudadanos de algún modo es el

Parlamento, así que yo creo que una Iniciativa que haya alcanzado cumplir los
requisitos del millón de firma (que son muy complicados) debería al menos conseguir
que su tema sea debatido en el parlamento.
10.- Imagina que la Comisión le llama como asesor para implementar algunos
ajustes en el proceso metodológico de IEC ¿cuáles serían las áreas prioritarias
que usted consideraría?
Unificar los criterios, una mayor hegemonía entre los 28 Estados Miembros, para no
tener que estar preparando 200 formularios para cada país. Eso facilitaría la labor de
futuras Iniciativas.
11.- ¿Podría usted decirme sobre el proceso de recaudación de fondos para la

iniciativa, fue difícil recaudar los fondos necesarios? De cuanto estamos
hablando?
En nuestro caso ha sido una estructura de costo muy simple, básicamente las
entidades Provida más fuertes, ya sea por tamaño o número de miembros han hecho
un aporte para cubrir lo más esencial que ha sido la coordinación Europea de la
Iniciativa, una pequeña oficina con teléfono e Internet para poder comunicarnos con
los países. Por otra parte, cada país a financiado sus gastos locales que he sabido ha
sido muy pocos, ya que la campaña se ha hecho con la colaboración de voluntarios.
Yo estoy convencida de que si hubiésemos tenido más financiación para hacer
campaña por radio y televisión habríamos llegado a 5 millones de firmas.
Unos estudiantes de publicidad y marketing de la Universidad Francisco de Vitoria en

Madrid España voluntariamente hicieron un pequeño video que pudimos colgar en la
pagina web y enviar a cada una de las entidades en los países para que lo colgasen
es la paginas web que ellos tienen y la verdad que fue de gran ayuda.
12.- Como han logrado financiar los costos que implica la agenda post-consulta,
siendo muy importante tener personal calificado a tiempo completo, como es tu
76
propio caso?
Una de las entidades (ONG) que trabaja en tema jurídico lo ha venido haciendo de
manera voluntaria. Seguro que le genera unos gastos pero no sabría decirle.
13.- ¿Utilizaron ustedes el software propuesto por la Comisión para hacer la

recolección de firmas?
Si correcto. Al principio tuvimos un retraso de la recogida online, porque había

problema con el software de la Comisión. Ellos estuvieron constantemente trabajando
en ello y el proceso mejoró. Aunque cuando hacíamos una campaña por ejemplo en
Italia, Polonia de un día determinado que se sumaban esfuerzo para hacer campaña,
el sistema de bloqueaba por haber un alto flujo en la red. En ese momento llamaba a
la Comisión o les enviaba un email explicándole que teníamos dicho problema en tal
país, entonces ellos chequeaban. O de repente la Comisión nos llamaba para
preguntarnos si estábamos teniendo campaña porque el servidor no soportaba el flujo.
Desafortunadamente creo que de esa forma perdimos muchas firmas, porque la gente
nos enviaba un email diciendo que no podía firmar la Iniciativa y le respondíamos si
podrían esperar unas horas por el alto flujo, pero no sabemos si esas personas
regresarían de nuevo a intentarlo. Al mismo tiempo en muchas ocasiones los firmantes
de encontraban con error al momento de firmar, el sistema no se los avalaba.
En nuestro caso no teníamos ningún técnico que pudiese encargarse de esto, así que
nos dirigíamos a la Comisión, quienes siempre estuvieron pendiente, pero considero
que es importante poder hacer el software más accesible y fácil para las personas al
momento de firmar.
Por ejemplo, cuando iban a firmar personas que eran ciegas, cuando aparecía el
código de verificación, no podían firmar, porque no contemplaba que tuviese voz.
Luego la Comisión hizo los ajuste e incluyeron voz. Tuvimos otros casos donde las
personas era ciegos y sordas y el software no contemplaba respuestas a estas
incapacidades.
Recibimos muchas quejas de ciudadanos europeos que no pudieron firmar porque

tenían algún tipo de discapacidad. Estas situaciones nos llevaron a enfocar nuestros
77
esfuerzos en la recolección de firmas en papel, adicionalmente las entidades locales

en cada país se les hacia más fácil la recolección en papel, debido a las relaciones
que tienen con sus miembros.
14.- ¿Consideras que sería necesario algún tipo de consultoría externa para
resolver preguntas o cuestiones emergentes durante el proceso de la iniciativa?
Creo que más que externo eso debería ser previsto por la propia Comisión Europea, si
bien ellos lo han venido haciendo, deben mejorarlo. Considero que la creación de
estructuras paralelas han de complicar la función de la Iniciativa. Yo esperaría que la
asesoría venga de primera mano de la persona que va a revisar mi Iniciativa, en ese
caso esa es la Comisión. Claro, esta es una apreciación más personal.
78
Appendix III
Interview made to Mg. Marie Christine Pironnet,

Senior Administrator at European Commission
And
Coordinator of the European Citizens’ Team Work.
(original language: English and Spanish)
1.- Have the signatories of any of the ECI until now been requiring more
assistance from the Commission than what the Commission has expected to
offer? In other words, has the assistance required been out of the Commission
scope?
Somos un equipo de 5 personas que estamos a disposición de los organizadores de

las Iniciativas. Tenemos contacto directo con ellos, ya sea vía email o vía telefónica,
adicionalmente respondemos muchas preguntas a través de EuropeDirect es un sitio
donde los ciudadanos pueden hacer preguntas relacionadas a la Unión Europea.
Los dos primeros años hemos tenido hasta 15 proyectos de Iniciativas al mismo
tiempo, lo que significó que estábamos bastante abrumados, pero con el tiempo
hemos sido capaces de gestionar el flujo de preguntas, que finalmente son bastante
similares. Los organizadores también han requerido a los servicios de informática.
Pienso que todo ha funcionado bastante bien. Si bien hubo un alto número de
preguntas, era lo que se había previsto.
2.- Is any kind of sponsorship or funding accepted as long as the legitimate

sources are indicated? For example: citizen donations, legal entities or NGOs?.
En relación a sponsorship, no hay limitaciones en la regulación todo lo que concierne a

tipo de donaciones. Todo esta hecho con el principio de transparencia, los
organizadores deben indicar todas las Fuentes de financiación y de apoyo que sean
superior a 500 euros, esto debe ser indicado anualmente con la descripción de los
donantes. Las ayuda en especie también deben ser indicadas, en ese caso se debe
79
proporcionar una estimación en euros de la ayuda recibida en especie. Información

que luego se hará pública.
Es importante acotar que la Comisión no puede financiar o dar dinero para una
Iniciativa.
En caso de financiamiento post-consulta, también habría que anunciarlo?
La Comisión solicitará información financiera hasta que se haya completado que se

haya completado el proceso de recolección. Financiamientos después de que la
Iniciativa haya sido escuchada por la Comisión y el Parlamento pasan a ser proceso
que pertenece internamente a la Iniciativa.
3.- On a objective scale from 1 to 10, how does the Commission consider that the
European Union raised the democracy values with an instrument such as the
ECI?
No debemos confundir dos cosas, las expectativas de los ciudadanos y el reglamento.
La Iniciativa Ciudadana Europea permite a cualquier ciudadano europeo dirigirse a las

instituciones Europeas para pedirles que sea examinado por la Comisión, un tema que
le parece importante. Pero los limites del proceso son que el tema este dentro del
ámbito de competencias de la Comisión. En otras palabras, la Comisión solo adoptar
una acto legislativo dentro de sus competencias.
Por otra parte, la Comisión tiene derecho de retenerse a legislar si considerar que la
solicitud de los ciudadanos no es oportuna. Hemos tenido un caso donde la Comisión
no quería legislar en el sentido propuesto por los organizadores de una Iniciativa,
básicamente por que ya hay legislación sobre el tema en cuestión y la Comisión
considera que esta legislación esta mejor de lo que proponen los ciudadanos. Por
ejemplo Stop Vivisection. Ya hay legislación en ese aspecto y la Comisión estima que
lo que se ha puesto en la mesa es mejor que lo que solicitan los ciudadanos a través
de la Iniciativa.
80
En la escala objetiva del 1 al 10 podría estar alredor de 7, porque es cierto que hay
posibilidades para mejorar el reglamento. Por el momento estamos escuchando a
todas las partes el Parlamento Europeo, los Comités Consultativos, el Mediador
Europeo y después veremos que se tiene. Es probable que al final de año
propongamos algo, quizás algunos puntos que podrían ser vistos. El Parlamento
todavía no finalizado su opinión es muy probable que se generen algunos cambios, si
esta en nuestras manos el poder mejorar el reglamento, estará bien.
4.- Would the Commission consider even much more direct democracy if the ECI
signatories (in the case their initiative is rejected or partially rejected) could have
the possibility to present their statement of support to the EP and the Council as
a second chance to be accepted or rejected by them?
El derecho de la Iniciativa pertenece a la Comisión, el Parlamento Europeo ya esta

implicado con la audición pública, los miembro deben definirse en favor o en contar de
la Iniciativa.
Presentarle la Iniciativa al Parlamento y al Concejo en la actualidad no es posible tal

como lo expresan las legislaciones vigentes, por el momento es la Comisión quien
tiene el poder de las Iniciativas, el Parlamento participa y si la opinión de la mayoría es
a favor de la Iniciativa esta volvería de nuevo a la Comisión y es la Comisión quien
tendrá la decisión de hacer una propuesta legislativa o no.
Si bien no veo la razón por la que tendría que pasar por el Consejo, pero si fuese
necesario no estamos cerrados a ello.
5.- Has the Commission considered that the ECI should have a major electronic
component to get better results?
De este tema conozco menos, pero hay dos grandes componentes electrónicos en el
funcionamiento de la Iniciativa Ciudadana.
81
Primero, el registro público que esta en línea, este registro esta gestionado por la
Comisión proporcionando informaciones generales a las Iniciativas y al mismo tiempo
información del estado de todas las propuestas de Iniciativas ciudadanas.
Segundo, La posibilidad de recoger en línea las declaraciones de apoyo a una

Iniciativa Ciudadana. La conexión en línea sigue siendo bajo la exclusiva
responsabilidad de los organizadores, mientras que el reglamento establece una serie
de normas relativas a los sistemas de recolección en línea y sus especificaciones
técnicas. Ambas son muy importantes.
La Comisión apoya activamente la conexión en línea con el software que permite la

recogida las declaraciones de apoyo en línea. Es un software que ha sido desarrollado
de acuerdo con lo que establece el reglamento. Adicionalmente la Comisión dando un
paso más allá de sus obligaciones, pero en virtud del reglamento, provee alojamiento
para los sistemas de recogida en línea de los organizadores que lo deseen,
acompañado del apoyo de los expertos informáticos de la Comisión, dándole apoyo
durante todo el ciclo de vida de las Iniciativas.
Me es importante decir que de las 31 Iniciativas registradas hasta hoy 21 han utilizado
el sistema de recogida en línea y de las 3 Iniciativas que hasta hoy han logrado
recoger más de un millón de firmas, alrededor de 55% de las firmas fueron recogidas
en línea.
Es importante que las Iniciativas puedan estar listas con el sistema de recolección en
línea antes de proponer la Iniciativa. Comenzar la recogida, es vital para la Iniciativa.
6.- Do you consider that the actual ECI normative allows for the implementation
of new technologies platforms?
La Comisión ha puesto a disposición conexiones a las redes sociales a través de

recolección en línea y por el momento estamos trabajando en soluciones para otras
nuevas plataformas tecnológicas como teléfonos móviles, tabletas que se podrán usar
en un futuro.
82
7.- Would the Commission consider acceptable that the ECI applicants could
have some kind of external consulting in order to solve emerging questions or
issues during the initiative process?
Los ciudadanos puedes solicitar consulta a través de EuropeDirect, pueden consultar

también asociaciones especializadas en los temas que les interesan. Por ejemplo, de
las tres Iniciativas que han recogido más de un millón de firmas requeridas, algunas
tuvieron apoyo de otras organizaciones, en algunos casos hasta apoyo de
organizaciones religiosas.
Ahora, hacer un punto de información exterior, la Comisión no cuenta con dinero para
eso. Eso sería aceptable pero la forma practica no sabría como hacerlo.
De todas formas esta EuropeDirect por ese medio podemos responder todas las
solicitudes que estén a nuestro alcance. Supongo que tal vez pensaba como una
oficina en cada país como el Parlamento ha propuesto.
8.- Are there any plans to unify the verification process criteria in the 28 Member
States? Since, until now, every Member State is allowed to verify the statements
of support in accordance with the National law and practice and this has brought
some inconsistencies. An example: if a citizen from UK is resident in another
Member State this person is not allowed by the national law to become a
signatory.
Este es un asunto que la Comisión conoce muy bien, porque al principio se había
pensado tener una sola forma con todos los mismo requisitos para todos los Estados
Miembros, pero esto no fue aceptado. Y es verdad que tenemos diferentes
aplicaciones para cada Estado Miembro y eso no nos gusta. Tratamos de mejorar las
cosas por medio de actos de delegados. Un acto delegado es que la comisión puede
hacer cambios del Reglamento de forma interna, estos cambios se presentan en el
Parlamento y el Consejo quienes tienen 20 días para hacer sus objeciones.
El acto delegado es adoptado por la Comisión y de momento hemos tenido una

simplificación para tres países Malta, Suecia y Republica Checa, han sido pequeñas
cosas de simplificaciones por medio del acto delegado. Cuando preguntamos a los
83
Estados Miembro de cambiar la cosas, como lo hemos hecho en ahora el mes de

junio, nos dicen que necesitan algunos datos para verificar las declaraciones de
apoyo, el tema es que algunos países no tienen un documento de identificación
nacional y esto dificulta un proceso de simplificación en conjunto. Por ejemplo, es
cierto que por ahora los ciudadanos del Reino Unido e Irlanda que vivan en otros
países como Austria, Portugal, Francia, Bulgaria y Republica Checa no pueden firmar
por no ser residentes en sus países de origen y por que no son ciudadanos nacionales
de los 5 países ya mencionados. Nosotros en la Comisión hemos tratado de hacer
algo al respecto porque es una complicación para nosotros también.
Cuando hacemos un acto delegado debemos hacer las traducciones en todos los
idiomas oficiales de la Unión Europea y eso es realmente un arduo trabajo, por todas
las especificaciones y solicitudes individuales que hace cada país. En la Comisión nos
gustaría tener un solo formulario para simplificar el proceso de verificación. Cada
oportunidad que tenemos la oportunidad de reunirnos con el grupo de experto de los
Estados miembros les preguntamos al respecto.
Entendemos muy bien que es difícil para los Estados Miembros. Algunos Estados
Miembros están planteando el tener un número de identificación único europeo para
cuando un ciudadano desee firmar algo, ellos puedan hacerlo a través de este número
de identificación europeo. El parlamento ha hablado de eso, pero de momento es solo
una posibilidad; es un tema de voluntad política, en nuestro caso podemos proponerlo
y actuar en ese sentido, no más.
%
84
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redonditas@gmail.

The impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on increasing citizen

at the Fachhochschule Burgenland GmbH

Victor Julio PÉREZ

Tutor: Arnold H. KAMMEL

Eisenstadt, September 18, 2015

1 That this thesis entitled

The impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on increasing citizen

Eisenstadt, September 18, 2015

Executive Summary .......................................................................................................I

ACEPI Agency for the Promotion of the European Citizens’ Initiative

Table 1: ECI procedures..……………………………………………………………………24

Graphic 1: ECIs requested before the European Commission………………………….46

- To study the legal basis of the ECI.

2. Democracy and the European Union

Schumpeter defines democracy as the “institutional arrangement for arriving at political

Direct Democracy and public participation

Direct democracy could be defined as an umbrella term for direct electorate

Citizenship and civil society

2.2. Direct Democracy in the European Union

At this point, it is important to have a clear understanding of what does it mean to be a

The EU citizenship gives several advantages to each Member State citizen,

Citizen Initiative – Article I-46, p. 4

2.2.1. Treaty of Lisbon

- The Lisbon Treaty amends and updates earlier EU treaties.

- It makes decision-making at the European level more efficient.

The Lisbon Treaty streamlines the EU’s decision-making procedures.

2.3 European Parliament

Its main functions are:

2.4 European Commission

3. The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)

The European Citizens’ Initiative as it is known nowadays is a democratic tool that

“Citizens want this tool to be use-friendly. They want it to be simple, straightforward,

3.1. The legal framework

3.2 How can an ECI be launched? – The procedure step by step.

• Citizens' Committee formation.

Citizens' Committee formation

time of registration) an amount over 500 Euros per year.

The registration phase

Collection of Statement of Support

The organizers of an initiative have 12 months to collect statements of support, as

Verification of the Statements of Support

Submission of the Initiative to the Commission

Examination, Public Hearing in the European Parliament and answer by the

The following table offers an overview of the process:

Table 1: ECI procedures

4. Study of cases of Initiatives answered by the Commission.

4.1. Right2Water Initiative

Table 2. Number and distributions of signatories for the ECI “Right2Water”

Source: (European Commission, 2015).

According to the Communication from the Commission Nº /*COM/2014/0177 final*/, the

Right2Water also received an Initiative Report by the European Parliament on securing

4.2. One of us Initiative

Source: (European Commission, 2015).

5. Analysis of impressions and suggestions from the organizers.

campaign was able to agglutinate a very diverse, multicultural and multidisciplinary

One of Us considers that the results of current answered ECIs generate

5.3 Common points of view from both ECI organizers

4.- An important recommendation offered by the interviewed is that the committee of a

6. Analysis of impressions and suggestions from the EC in the same cases

Currently, for three ECIs proposals the collection process is ongoing.

The first initiative, 'Right2Water', submitted to the Commission on 20 December 2013

According to the Communication from the Commission Nº /COM/2014/0177 final/, the