European Citizens’ Initiative

Today, the organisers of the initiative “Start Unconditional Basic Incomes (UBI) throughout the EU” initiative launched their signature collection campaign. They will have one year to collect one million signatures , meeting the required threshold in at least seven EU countries. Learn more about the initiative.

On 31 August 2020, the organisers of the initiative “Voters Without Borders” launched their signature collection campaign. They will have to collect one million signatures by 11 September 2021, meeting the required threshold in at least seven EU countries. Learn more about the initiative.

Last month the European Commission released the last version of the Online Collection Software. However, it will not maintain this open source version further as the new ECI regulation does not give mandate to the European Commission to do so. Instead, the Commission encourages all organisers to use the Central Online Collection System.

On 7 October, the European Citizens’ Initiative team is organising an interactive online workshop: “My citizen’s voice in the EU!” as part of the European Week of Regions. Together with our speakers, including past organisers, representatives from the civil society and the EU institutions, we will discuss the role of regions in making participatory democracy happen in the EU. Join us to learn how the European Citizens’ Initiative works in practice and share your ideas on how to engage citizens locally! Register by 27 September. The workshop will be in English.

The workshop held on 24 September as part of the Online Forum on Modern Direct Democracy enabled the sharing of experiences among various systems for collecting signatures of support. What can the European Citizens’ Initiative’s Central Online Collection System learn from other systems and examples? If you missed the workshop, the recording is now available.

If you’ve missed the webinar organised by the European Citizens’ Initiative Forum about the tools to help you on your European Citizens’ Initiative journey, do not worry. The recording is now available! You can catch-up with Assya Kavrakova, Director, ECAS, Adriana Mungiu-Pătraşcu, Policy Officer, European Commission and Jérôme Stefanini, IT Project Officer, European Commission to discover what has been put in place to support you throughout the whole European Citizens’ Initiative process. The recording is available in English

In this latest blogpost published on the European Citizens’ Initiative Forum, Bruno Kaufman discusses the evolution of transnational referendums across Europe and what the future holds for such instruments of participatory democracy.