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Assignment no. 4
European Citizens Initiative
The European Citizens Initiative (ECI) is a mechanism introduced by the Treaty of
Lisbon which provides European Union citizens with the opportunity to put forward a
proposal for legislation at the EU level. In order to do so, organisers of an initiative are
required to establish a citizens committee that will collect one million traditional and
online signatures of support for their idea from at least 7 out of 28 member-states
within the period of one year. They can address areas where the EU has competence to
act. Once this is successfully done, the initiators meet a representative of the
Commission and are allowed to present their proposal at a public hearing in the
European Parliament. Afterwards the Commission may either accept or reject the
initiative, while in the former case it is forwarded to be decided upon by the Parliament
and the Council under the ordinary legislative procedure. Eventually, after having been
adopted by these bodies it may become an EU law binding for the member-states. The
mechanism started to be used in May 2012.
The ECI can be considered as a way of lowering the EU democratic deficit by
giving ordinary citizens the right to come up with their proposals and potentially affect
the Communitys legislation which can in turn impact legal regulations of the memberstates. The procedure itself appears to be relatively simple and accessible to people,
while the requirements concerning the signature collection are demanding yet realistic
which is proved by some initiatives having been successfully submitted to the
Commission so far. Therefore, it may be an effective tool in the hands of social
movements able to mobilise support from large parts of the society for bottom-up
initiatives. Additionally, it has a significant integrative potential as it may foster the