Today the plenary session of the European Parliament will vote on Loránt Vincze’s report on the implementation of the Regulations on the European citizens’ initiative. On April 26, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) supported the report with an overwhelming majority, thus, the European Parliament will most likely vote in favor of the resolution with significant support.
According to the revised regulation on the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which entered into force January 2020, the Commission has to periodically review the functioning of the ECI. The presentation of the first report is due no later than January 2024. In order to contribute with its position to this report, the European Parliament has to adopt its own report, too. Today the Parliament will vote on this position in the form of a resolution.
As stressed by the report, the European Parliament regrets that the overall number of valid ECIs and the impact of the ECI instrument on EU decision-making remains very low. Since the introduction of the ECI, up until late April 2023, the Commission has received 122 requests for ECIs, 97 of which have been registered. Since 2012, 20 requests have been withdrawn by the organizers before the end of the collection period, whereas 47 ECIs have not reached the threshold of one million signatures by the end of the collection period. So far, only nine ECIs have reached the threshold of one million signatures, of which the first six have received a response from the Commission. These statistics show that, while the number of admissible ECIs has increased, the number of valid ECIs remains very low.
The European Parliament underlines that ECIs have so far shown limited visibility and low effectiveness, which risks weakening this participatory mechanism, therefore, it suggests to improve its visibility, accessibility and legal effectiveness.
In terms of visibility, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to launch broad multilingual information campaigns to promote the ECI, and also encourages the Member States to coordinate awareness-raising campaigns at national level. The report adds that the Parliament and its Liaison Offices should be involved in these information campaigns.
Regarding accessibility, one of the most pressing issues according to the Parliament is the online collection of signatures. According to the revised ECI regulation, the recourse to individual online collection systems will no longer be possible for ECIs registered after the end of 2022; organizers will have to use the central online collection system. Given that individual online collection systems give more freedom to organizers to use online collection systems tailored to their needs, the European Parliament is concerned that phasing out individual online collection systems might have a negative effect on the accessibility of the tool. To that end, the Parliament calls on the Commission to assess the possibility of reintroducing the option for organizers to use individual online collection systems.
Thirdly, the improvement of the ECIs legal effectiveness is one of the most pressing issues. The Parliament notes that there is there is a disproportion between citizens’ expectations, the huge amount of effort and extensive resources necessary to organize ECIs and their weak legal and political impact, even if the required threshold of one million signatures is reached, which may discourage citizens from launching ECIs and weaken their trust in EU institutions. This phenomenon is also known by the weak ’price-value ratio’ of the ECI.
This imbalance constitutes a major cause of deterring citizens from using this instrument. The report highlights that organizing an ECI is a demanding and costly process, and it is very difficult for individual citizens to manage ECIs without being supported by associations with strong organizational capacities and financial means. Therefore, the Parliament underlines the need to reduce the regulatory, administrative and financial hurdles for citizens to manage ECIs as much as possible and also the need for financial support for the organization of ECIs.
Regarding the financial support, the Parliament specifically recommends and calls on the Commission to provide financial support for valid ECIs reaching the threshold of one million signatures, while also recommends the assessment of the possibility of providing progressive financial support for ECIs that reach certain thresholds of signatures under one million. This is a new recommendation that has never appeared in other EU documents before regarding the improvement of the implementation of the ECI.
In order to develop the price-value ratio of the ECI by improving its impact on the EU decision-making process, the Parliament also calls on the Commission to establish a proper dialogue with organizers about their goals and the best possible means to achieve them which dialogue could already be initiated during the collection period. Moreover, the Parliament also recommends the Commission to engage with organizers of valid ECIs after it has issued its communication, thereby increasing the possibility of legislative follow-up in the long term.
An interesting part of the document, and most probably a personal take of the rapporteur, where the Parliament expresses its regret for the fact that the Commission did not consider any additional legal act or amendment to current legislation to be necessary in addressing the Minority SafePack Initiative (the MSPI is supported by the Federal Union of European Nationalities, an umbrella organization of European national minorities, the president of which is Loránt Vincze, the rapporteur of the report). The Parliament also stresses that strengthening the rights of minorities, as requested by the Minority SafePack, is also important in the context of future EU enlargement.
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