European Citizens Initiative unusable, critics say after EC presents official proposal

European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic on Wednesday (video) presented the long-awaited official proposal for a European Citizens Initiative but the launch immediately drew fire. The plan is said to be too narrow on the topics and too intrusive on the data requirements, which could in effect render the initiative unusable.

Supported by democracy advocates as an important new tool to bridge the large and growing gap between citizens and the EU, the European Citizens Initiative (ECI) is in danger of being rendered unusable by the excessively restrictive regulations proposed by the European Commission today. The European Parliament and Council will now negotiate the final regulations.

According to Carsten Berg, coordinator of the ECI Campaign some positive elements have been added to the proposed regulation based on input from a public consultation and hearing. However, other excessively restrictive requirements risk killing the ECI before it is born. A few changes could ensure that it is usable.

Also read:
http://wiki.citizens-of-europe.eu/images/9/9d/100331_eci_proposal.pdf
http://www.citizens-initiative.eu/
http://wiki.citizens-of-europe.eu/images/4/45/100331_eci_flowchart.pdf

and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/31/european-citizens-initiat...
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/35159
http://www.democracy-international.org/eci.html

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[chapellkarina]

cute .. like your clip .. keep it up =)

[ViriathusVingathor]

Unusable XD,the best proposal ever to pass in this commission.

Now we will be able to ban Islam forever.

[thesapiens16]

That is the craziest thing that I've heard. They set up a dictatorship (the EU), don't let us have referendums, effectively veto national soverignty and then say how wonderful they are, because they are so generous as to give people in the Empire E-"Citizens" initatives!?!?!?! My initiative is that they restore my countries economy give us back our own monetary unit and piss off forever more!!!!

[Spenner56]

The " Citizens initiative " should be a wake-up call for everyone in Europe who still cares for democracy ! We had this " citizenship " forced upon us without consultation or our CONSENT by un-elected apparatschiks.

The " initiative " basically " allows " us new serf-citizens to present a petition on any subject that is not critical of the EU or it's institutions....to an un-elected Commission of rich technocrats who are under no obligation to consider it !

Orwell is turning in his grave.

[Choranzanus]

The big problem of this iniciative is exactly what he says, the first thing put to vote would be the very existence of EU. The EU officials fear this very much. I support EU, but the more they dig in the worse the problem becomes (the deeper the hole so to speak).

[Spenner56]

More EU fraud and deception.

The arrogance of these beurocrats is an insult to democracy. Perhaps the unelected commission got cold feet after they heard that AVAAZ has already got over 381,000 signatures on it's petition for Borrosso to reconsider allowing GM crops to be grown in Europe. The "citizens initiative" was just a lie to begin with, like "The lisbon treaty is not the same as the constitution" or "The commission respects the Irish NO vote".

[Spenner56]

Well what a surprise ! One of the big selling points of the Lisbon treaty/constitution...does not work !

[pwobrussels]

COngratulations. Not the people but the Commission knows what is good for us. Where are we going to?

[pwobrussels]

COngratulations. Not the people but the Commission knows what is good for us. Where are we going to?