The Revival of the European Citizens’ Initiative

  Focus - Allegati
  18 aprile 2024
  12 minuti, 34 secondi

Abstract

The European Citizens´ Initiative (ECI) represented the first mechanism in the world where citizens were allowed to participate in the decision-making process. Through the ECI, European citizens had the chance to promote their campaigns to present them to the European Commission. However, the ECI throughout the years has proven to be less effective than expected, mining not only its reputation, but also the trust in the bodies of the European Union.

This article presents the case of the ECI to highlight the importance of participatory democracy within the EU to tackle the rise of populism. After an introduction of the roles of the ECI, the article will focus on its troubled existence from 2012 onwards, highlighting the fundamental changes it went through to regain citizens´ trust after its downfall between 2012 and 2017.

Author

Gabriel Silini - Senior Researcher, Mondo Internazionale G.E.O. - Politics

Introduction

The European Citizens´ Initiative (ECI) was introduced in 2012 with the Lisbon Treaty and since its introduction, it has faced several challenges which were threatening its existence. During the past 12 years since its creation, the ECI has failed EU citizens to then reborn as a stronger entity backed by the European Commission.

After its introduction in 2012, the ECI was welcomed with positivity and hope for a stronger participation - and consideration - of European citizens. Nonetheless, shortly after its introduction, citizens noticed that their initiatives were not taken as seriously as they expected, resulting in a loss of credibility not only for the ECI itself, but also for the European Commission, which is the responsible organ considering the initiatives and, eventually, translating them into legislation.

The following chapters will analyse the tasks of the ECI since its introduction, focusing on the directives and reports of the European Commission and their implementation.

The ECI and its role

The 1st of April 2012 the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) came into force to ideally tackle populism, euroscepticism and the democratic deficit the EU was facing (Longo, 2019). The ECI is the first transnational citizens’ initiative mechanism in the world, and it is a measure foreseen in the Lisbon Treaty to allow European citizens to participate in the political decision-making by presenting petitions signed by at least 1 million citizens from at least 7 Member States. The proposals submitted have to be appropriate and within the framework of the powers of the European Commission, according to Article 11 par4 TEU:

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 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 (European Union, 2012).

The ECI is 'an instrument for engagement and agenda-setting at EU level' (European Commission, 2017) but ECIs have no authority to mandate EU institutions. Nonetheless, they can ask the European Commission to present a legislative initiative. In this regard, it is equivalent to the powers vested in the European Parliament (EP) and the Council of the EU, as it is a design feature that the measure should not have powers that exceed those of the Parliament, given the Treaties' emphasis on representative democracy (Greenwood, 2019).

The initial failure of the ECI

Although the expectations for the ECI were high, it soon became clear that the ECI was nothing more than a failure. In fact, in 2017, 5 years after the creation of the ECI, only 63 initiatives have attempted to register on the ECI portal. Among these 63, 20 were deemed out of scope by the European Commission and, of the remaining 43, 32 failed to reach the signature threshold.

It is also worth mentioning that the only 3 of the 63 ECI initiatives that have collected 1 million signatures were submitted in 2012. Nonetheless, the Commission produced vague and clear decisions regarding the 3 ECI initiatives and there have been no follow-ups of the ECIs, which convinced Europeans that the ECI is an illusory initiative. Following the dissatisfaction regarding these 3 unheard ECI initiatives, the number of applications from 2013 to 2017 drastically decreased (Weisskircher, 2017).

Many of the organisers of these ECI initiatives were highly dissatisfied with the outcomes of their proposals. Moreover, they highlighted that the system to present an application is deceiving and costly, with almost no funds or support from the EU (Apelblat, 2015).

Proving the dissatisfaction regarding the ECI mechanisms, the organisers of the ECI One of US decided to formally bring their case against the European Commission in front of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU); however, the case was dismissed (Longo, 2019).

The reasons why the ECI failed to keep the promises and hopes of the EU is multifaceted, but it mainly lies in the fact that EU citizens felt betrayed by the actual lack of participating in the legislative process. The absence of the expected participation in the legislative process can be depicted by the way the European Commission dismissed with simplicity the initiatives brought by Europeans, without any recommendation or possibility to submit a second draft after an analysis from the Commission.

Moreover, the Commission's approach has clearly hampered the volume and diversity of democratic discourse that the ECI can facilitate. This is especially dangerous at a time when, following Brexit, the need to reactivate the connection between the EU and citizens is more pressing than ever, and new forms of citizen participation should coexist with traditional forms of representative democracy (Longo, 2019).

After 5 years of the introduction of the ECI within the EU framework, the European Commission has issued in 2017 an analytical report of the ECI, sharing the following outcomes:

The various analyses on the first five years of the ECI implementation converge in concluding that shortcomings identified in the instrument as it currently works undermine its effectiveness and the achievement of its objectives, i.e. to enable citizens to contribute to the EU agenda and foster transnational debate and the emergence of a European public sphere. The problems identified can be summarised around the following three aspects:

  1. the difficulties for citizens to propose legally admissible initiatives – this is evidenced by the relatively high rate of refusals of registration (30% of requests for registration could not be registered by the Commission as they were manifestly outside the scope of the Commission's competences);
  2. a complex and burdensome process for organisers of initiatives to collect statements of support, as evidenced by the low rate of successful initiatives, i.e. initiatives that manage to reach the required number of signatories within the one year collection period;
  3. limited debate and impact so far generated by citizens' initiatives (European Commission, 2017).

The new direction of the ECI

Following the analytical report of the European Commission in 2017, on 17 April 2019 the European Parliament and the Council published the EU Regulation 2019/788 on the European Citizens’ Initiative to improve the scope of the ECI (European Parliament, 2019).

This Regulation aimed at simplifying the ECI, making it more accessible and easier for applicants. Of particular importance is Paragraph 13 of the Regulation (EU) 2019/788:

[...] the Commission should provide information, assistance and practical support to citizens and groups of organisers, in particular on those aspects of this Regulation within its competence. To reinforce this information and assistance, the Commission should also make an online collaborative platform available that provides a dedicated discussion forum and independent support, information and legal advice about the European citizens' initiative. The platform should be open to citizens, groups of organisers, organisations and external experts with experience in organising European citizens' initiatives. The platform should be accessible for persons with disabilities (European Parliament, 2019).

Thanks to this regulation, a two-stage procedure to submit the initiatives was created, with the duty of the European Commission to inform the organisers whether the initiative falls outside its competence or not, giving the organisers the chance to edit it and resubmit it within two months. This new procedure created a new positive trend towards the ECI. Between 2017 and 2023, 40 new initiatives were received and 37 were registered by the Commission, with only one ultimately refused (Christopoulou, 2024).

Alongside this new procedure, the Regulation also mentioned the obligation of the Commission to promote the role of the ECI in Europe, as well as providing a collaborative platform to citizens to provide practical information and campaigning advice to the organisers of the initiatives.

Another highly appreciated improvement is the Follow-up procedure. During the first successful initiatives between 2012 and 2017, the European Commission replied with vague clauses, showing no particular intent in taking any immediate legal action and clarifying that the Commission was in no way forced to create a legislative proposal in response to a successful initiative. The main aim of the ECI does not lie, according to the Commission, in the certainty of an outcome, but rather in the democratic debates that the initiatives trigger. This mechanism ultimately gave the perception that the Commission does not actually consider the initiatives presented by the citizens and, as the costs to promote the campaign to collect the signatures were high, EU citizens gradually stopped presenting initiatives through the ECI (Christopoulou, 2024).

Although the regulation could not alter the above-mentioned procedure of the Commission, it could provide a deadline and the involvement of the European Parliament. Thanks to the new deadline standards expanded to three to six months, as well as the obligation for the Commission to to set a timeline for any proposed initiatives, having the engagement of the European Parliament, as in Articles 14 and 16 of the ECI Regulation. Thanks to the expanded deadline and the involvement of the Parliament, the replies from the Commission from 2019 on were much more concrete and open to proceed with legislative proposals (Christopoulou, 2024).

The 2023 Review Report and the rise of the ECI

The European Commission further developed the ECI with its first review of the Regulation (EU) 2019/788 (European Parliament, 2019) published in December 2023. The review provides interesting advancements for the ECI, allowing it to have a potentially positive impact on the EU system. The review allows ECI organisers to have a favoured position in the democratic discussion, enhancing their visibility through the new ECI platform and thus the likelihood to receive the threshold of signatures required to officially present the initiative in front of the European Commission.

Moreover, the new platform of the ECI does not only provide an efficient way for ECI organisers to promote their cause and allow debate, but it also contributes to boost civic education on the role of the ECI and the process of EU affairs in general.

Even though the Regulation does not mention any duty from the European Commission on the follow-up stages of the ECIs, the Commission is closely considering the successful initiatives while creating a systematic procedure to deal with them in a fair and transparent way. In doing so, the Commission is now perceived as an organ much more open to citizens´ initiatives and concerns (Christopoulou, 2024).

It is important to note that recent research has shown that the new role of the ECI is enhancing policy changes not only within the EU framework, but also at national and subnational levels. This new promising trend is highlighting the positive effects of encouraging citizens to engage in political debate (Tosun et.al., 2022).

Conclusions

The ECI narrative has shown the importance of institutional behaviour towards citizens. After the introduction and entry into force of the ECI, the European Commission was not giving much credit to the initiative presented by the citizens, who on the other hand had to go through a lengthy and costly process to promote their initiatives and reach the threshold of signatures. This behaviour from the Commission resulted in an apparent failure of the ECI as a whole, as citizens lost their belief in the institution and the perception that the European Union did not care about the citizens grew.

However, once the European Commission recognised the value and the importance of the ECI for citizens, the ECI gradually underwent significant changes and improvements in its structure, allowing more visibility for the initiatives and easier access to funds. Moreover, the Commission also demonstrated in the past 5 years much more involvement and interest towards the initiatives.

Although it might be premature to declare this as the pinnacle of the ECI and of the involvement of citizens in European law, this first step to revolutionise the ECI represents an increasing awareness of how the European Union and its bodies are perceived by its citizens.

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References

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