The purpose of the paper is to analyse the early implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon provisions concerning citizens’ initiative and to suggest paths to follow in its application. 

1. Background

European Union is a communion of states based on shared values, values established in the Treaties. The Treaty on European Union introduces a whole new dimension of participatory democracy alongside that of representative democracy on which the Union is founded. Reinforcing the citizenship of the Union and recognizing every citizen's right to participate in the democratic life of the Union the Lisbon Treaty enshrined the key standards of civil dialogue – the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). It provides that ‘not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties’ (Article11, paragraph 4 of the Treaty on European Union).

The guiding principles for this proposal are therefore as follows:

–        The conditions should ensure that citizens’ initiatives are representative of a Union interest, while ensuring that the instrument remains easy to use.

–        The procedures should be simple and user-friendly, while preventing fraud or abuse of the system and they should not impose unnecessary administrative burdens on the Member States.

ECI will add a new dimension to European democracy, complement the set of rights related to the citizenship of the Union and increase the public debate around European politics, helping to build a genuine European public space. Its implementation will reinforce citizens’ and organized civil society’s involvement in the shaping of EU policies. But the Commission will not accept proposed citizens’ initiatives which could be manifestly against the values of the Union.

2. Content of research

So the initiative must accomplish few conditions which we intend to discover and unveil in a comparative study with the national initiative. As we know at the level of the EU member states their fundamental laws also set up the democratic initiative of the people. The following Member States have citizens’ initiatives at national level: Austria, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and The Netherlands. These initiatives differ considerably in scope and generally operate according to different procedures. Because at EU level, there is no experience to build upon this, we will analyze the national citizens’ initiative and the problems which occurred in practice.

This new right is a significant step forward in the democratic life of the Union. It provides a singular opportunity to bring the Union closer to the citizens and to foster greater cross-border debate about EU policy issues, by bringing citizens from a range of countries together in supporting one specific issue. The Green Paper elaborated on the ECI lift up few legal, administrative and practical issues. In the second part of our paper we will study these issues and we will try to find out how European Commission administered them.  

On 16 of February, finally, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament (EP) gave the green light to the European Citizens’ Initiative, one of the most significant innovations in the Lisbon Treaty. After the regulation entered into force, member states will have a year to adjust their national regulations, so the first European collection of signatures can begin in the spring of 2012 at the earliest.

This new instrument will make a very positive contribution not only to European democracy but also to EU policy making. And for that this tool has to be use friendly – simple, straightforward, understandable and most of all accessible. Having the new Regulation concerning ECI we will determine which are the procedures and the conditions necessary to be followed for ensuring the treaty implementation and how it managed to solve the issues raised by the Green Paper.

The Lisbon Treaty reformed the EU and set up a larger basis which triggers new priorities for a closer EU. This new instrument will bridge the gap between EU institution and citizens and will offer cross-border collaboration. EU has to give serious consideration to the demands made by million of citizens so it will teach everyone that EU is us. To become a stronger community in a globalized era EU needs the human touch and this is exactly the spirit of the last EU treaty. 

3. The research methodology

The methodological approach of our study will use documentation, comparison observation and identification of national and European issues and synthesis of data collected to get the real dimension of the problems discussed. The research will open the way to a future project of models which will identify paths to follow on the way to bring the citizens closer to EU.

Bibliography

Boomberg, E., Peterson, J. and Stubb, A. (2008). The European Union: How does it work?, Oxford University Press.

Ginsberg , P. (2008). Democracy: crisis and rebnewal. Profile Books Ltd., London, Great Britain.

Weatherill S. (2010). Cases and materials on EU Law. Oxford University Press.

Green Paper on a European Citizens’ Initiative, Brussels, 11.11.2009, COM(2009) 622

Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the citizens’ initiative, COM (2010)119, 2010/0074(COD).

The European Citizens’ Initiative web page - http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/secretariat_general/citizens_initiative/index_en.htm