{"id":33685,"date":"2025-01-29T17:28:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T16:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/?p=33685"},"modified":"2025-01-29T17:29:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T16:29:48","slug":"european-citizens-initiative-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/2025\/01\/29\/european-citizens-initiative-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"European Citizens&#039; Initiative Handbook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/euagenda.eu\/publications\/download\/612358\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">European Citizens&#039; Initiative (ECI)<\/span> <\/a>is a tool that allows EU citizens <strong>directly participate in EU policy-making<\/strong> and put issues that are important to them on the European agenda. This initiative gives citizens the opportunity to <strong>to start a political debate<\/strong> a <strong>raise awareness<\/strong> on common topics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How to get involved:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Support for existing initiatives:<\/strong> Citizens can <strong>sign ongoing initiatives<\/strong>which they support.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Starting your own initiative:<\/strong> A group of citizens can <strong>to establish one&#039;s own initiative<\/strong> and after <strong>obtaining the necessary number of signatures<\/strong> call on the European Commission to propose new laws in areas where it has the power to act.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Basic information about ECI:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Legal framework:<\/strong> The ECI is governed by EU Regulation 2019\/788.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Areas of application:<\/strong> Initiatives may cover areas such as the environment, consumer protection, agriculture, fisheries, energy, transport and trade.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Who can sign the initiative:<\/strong> Every EU citizen who has <strong>suffrage<\/strong> to the European Parliament, can sign the initiative. It is not necessary to be registered as a voter, just to be of voting age.\n<ul>\n<li>Commission <strong>supports lowering the minimum age to 16 years<\/strong> for supporting the initiative.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Who can organize an initiative:<\/strong> The initiative can be founded <strong>at least seven EU citizens<\/strong> from at least seven different Member States who are entitled to vote in the European Parliament.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How to support the initiative:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Support is possible <strong>online<\/strong> or <strong>on paper<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>It is necessary to provide <strong>data<\/strong> such as name, surname, nationality and date of birth or identification number and address.<\/li>\n<li>Online signatures are protected <strong>high safety standards<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The data is processed in accordance with the GDPR regulation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>How to organize an initiative:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Group creation:<\/strong> Creating a group at least <strong>seven EU citizens<\/strong> from at least seven different Member States who have the right to vote.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Initiative registration:<\/strong> Applying for registration on the ECI website and providing <strong>information about the initiative<\/strong> a <strong>organizers<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Collection of signatures:<\/strong> Obtaining <strong>at least 1 million verified signatures<\/strong> with minimum numbers in at least seven Member States.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Signature verification:<\/strong> Submission of signatures for verification by the competent national authorities.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Submitting an initiative:<\/strong> Submission of the initiative and verified certificates to the commission.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Commission response:<\/strong> The Commission has 6 months to examine the initiative and send a response.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Important aspects:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The initiatives must be in areas where the Commission has <strong>power to propose laws<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Initiatives must not be <strong>abusive, frivolous or contrary to EU values<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>The Commission may take the initiative <strong>register, partially register or refuse registration<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>After successful registration, the Commission took the initiative <strong>translated into all official EU languages<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Successful examples of initiatives:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Right2Water:<\/strong> Contributed to the revision of the Drinking Water Directive, which <strong>guarantees access to safe drinking water<\/strong> for all Europeans.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ban glyphosate:<\/strong> Led to acceptance <strong>Act on the transparency and sustainability of risk assessment in the food chain<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Stop Finning \u2013 Stop the Trade:<\/strong> Led to <strong>preparing an impact assessment<\/strong> to ban the import, export and transit of loose shark fins.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics:<\/strong> It prompted the Commission to <strong>action to accelerate the reduction of animal testing<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other sources of information:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>European Citizens&#039; Initiative website:<\/li>\n<li>European Citizens&#039; Initiative Forum:<\/li>\n<li>Newsletter:<\/li>\n<li>Europe Direct:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>ECI is <strong>a powerful tool for EU citizens<\/strong>who want <strong>to influence EU policies<\/strong> and contribute to building <strong>a better Europe<\/strong>. <em><strong>Spring<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European Citizens&#039; Initiative (ECI) is a tool that allows EU citizens to directly participate in EU policy-making and put issues that are important to them on the European agenda. It gives citizens the opportunity to start a political debate and raise awareness of common issues. How to get involved: Support existing initiatives: Citizens can sign up to ongoing initiatives that they support. [\u2026]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-institucie"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.co2news.sk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}