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About the citizens' initiative
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How to sign up to an initiative?
To be able to sign up to a European citizens' initiative you need to be an EU citizen (national of a member state) old enough to vote* in European Parliament elections (18 except in Austria, where the voting age is 16).
In order to do so, you have to fill in a specific statement of support form provided by the organisers of the initiative, on paper or online (if the organisers have provided a website for that purpose). See the sections below for more information on how to do so.
Before signing up, check that the form includes all the required information regarding the initiative (the title, description and objectives) as well as the Commission registration number for that initiative. If you wish, you can check that the initiative has been registered on this website (organisers are required to register their initiative before starting to collect statements of support).
Data requirements
The data you are required to provide in your statement of support form depend on the member state which you come from. This is due to the fact that national authorities are responsible for verifying the validity of signatories' statements of support and for certifying the number of valid statements collected in each country (organisers of initiatives are required to collect a certain number of signatures in at least 7 EU member states). The required data therefore correspond to what the member states consider necessary to verify a statement of support.
If you live in a member state but you are a national of another member state or if you hold the nationality of several member states, you will need to choose the country for which your statement of support will be counted. You should select the country which will be able to verify the data you provide in your statement of support: depending on the case, this could be the country that issued the personal identification (document) number that you provide, your country of residence or your country (or one of your countries) of nationality.
In any case, you are allowed to sign up to a given initiative only once.
The requirements for each country can be found here.
Signing up on paper
- Use a form corresponding to the (or one of the) member state(s) which you come from (either your member state of nationality or your member state of residence).
- Fill in the required information (depending on the member state).
- Sign the form and give it back to the organisers.
Signing up online
- Go to the website of the organisers (you may find the link in the page of the initiative concerned on this website).
- Check that the online collection system used by the organisers has been certified by a competent authority in a member state (organisers are required to publish the certificate on their website). This certificate shows that the member state in question has checked, among other things, that the data was securely collected and stored in the system.
- Fill in the required information, making sure that you provide the necessary data required by your member state.
- You are not required to sign electronically when you submit your statement of support online.
Particular cases
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You are a national of one (or several) member state(s) and you live in another member state: in which member state will your statement of support be counted?
Depending on the data required by these member states, you may have the possibility to choose between these member states, bearing in mind that you can sign up only once for a given initiative. The data which you provide in your statement of support (e.g. passport number or residence card number) will determine in which member state your statement of support will be counted.
Example
An Austrian living in Estonia can either:
- fill in the form for Estonia, providing his/her first name, family name, address, date and place of birth and nationality – in this case, his/her statement of support will be verified and therefore counted in Estonia;
- or fill in the form for Austria, providing in addition to the above data his/her passport or identity card number – in this case, his/her statement of support will be verified and therefore counted in Austria.
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You are an EU citizen but you live outside the EU: can you sign up to an initiative? In which member state will your statement of support be counted?
This depends on the member state of which you are a national.
Depending on the requirements asked by this member state, you may or may not be able to sign up. This is due to the fact that some member states are not able to verify statements of support from their nationals living outside the EU.
If you have the possibility to sign up, your statement of support will be counted in your member state of nationality.
What happens next?
Once the organisers of the citizens' initiative have collected the required number of statements of support (one million overall and the required minimum numbers in at least 7 member states), they will submit them to the competent authorities in each country where they have collected in order for them to be verified. Once the authorities have verified them they will issue a certificate to the organisers stating the valid number of statements of support collected. Verification by the national authorities will involve checking that the data that you have provided are correct.
Data protection
Both the organisers of an initiative and the national authorities are required to protect your data throughout the procedure and cannot use your data for any other purpose.
For more information on how your data will be protected, click here.
