25 August 2021
The European Commission has today adopted its second report on the application of the European Citizens’ Initiative Regulation.
Since this new tool entered into force in 2012, an estimated 9 million Europeans from all 28 Member States have now supported a European Citizens’ Initiative. Four successful initiatives have so far collected over 1 million signatures each and the Commission has committed to follow-up actions on 3 of them.
Non-legislative improvements to the tool have been implemented in the past 3 years. The Juncker Commission has also taken a more political approach, with all requests for registration (before signatures can be collected) now being heard by the College of Commissioners and partial registrations being granted in some cases. These changes have resulted in a significant increase of the number of initiatives accepted for registration: about 90% of proposed initiatives since April 2015, compared to 60% of all proposals in the previous 3-year period.
Other tools and programmes also exist to involve European citizens, such as the Europe for Citizens programme.