Have your say!
November 13, 2009
(10 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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When the Lisbon Treaty enters into force on the 1 December, it will offer a new opportunity to citizens to influence the EU agenda. It is the Citizens’ Initiative that will enable one million citizens to request the Commission to bring forward a particular policy proposal. At this weeks Commission meeting we decided to launch a wide public consultation, a so-called Green paper, to help to define for example the number of countries from which people must come, how to check that signatures are real, what form a petition should take etc.
I therefore encourage all of you to participate in this exercise, to give your views on how best to design this new democratic tool. The deadline for reply is end of January 2010.
That is also the deadline for the “old Commission”. It will have to stay that long in order to allow the European Parliament to plan the hearings of the new commissioners.
The Berlaymont building is full of speculations and rumours about that - and the names for the new top posts as President of the European Council and High Representative/Vice President of the Commission.
I have my own view; the right man in the right place is often a woman!
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November 13th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
This is what I submitted to the European Citizen’s Initiative some time ago:
The Citizens’ Initiative - first set out in the Constitutional Treaty - should be enacted immediatley to open a new channel for democratic participation in Europe and help to create the public realm the EU badly needs.
The Citizens’ Initiative stipulates that a petition with at least one million signatures obtained from a number of Member States may be sent to the Commission inviting it to take a legislative initiative, provided the latter is compatible with the EU’s rules and principles.
In order to make such a new democratic channel practical, the EU should create a petition website similar to the one 10 Downing Street already runs (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk).
If there was such a direct channel between citizens and the EU, Europe-wide campaigning and organising around political issues could take place more easily. This would generally raise awareness of EU affairs in the Member States, tackle the “democratic deficit” and help to create a pan-European political realm for debate.
So, what are we waiting for?
November 14th, 2009 at 12:34 am
I don’t know how to design the “Citizens iniative” but as a “citizens iniative” I’m wondering when the first EU financed european
TV channel will be launched? For debates, news, information from Brussels and for european culture? Thanks for a nice blog.
/Björn Hessle, Stockholm, Sweden
November 14th, 2009 at 12:53 am
What’s the point in getting a million signatures for something you are going to block anyway?
1. If I write as an individual to a Commissioner or Commissioner staff and my idea seems good enough to take up, you’ll presumably take it up
2. If I get a million signatures for the same, the same happens
conversely
if you don’t like the idea, 1 billion signatures makes no difference
The right way:
A million signatures should earn the right of the proposal to be launched to the Parliament and Council of Ministers
just like an ordinary Commission proposal.
Of course that means that these democratically elected representatives can still modify/block it
(again, as with your proposals) - but at least it gets taken up for scrutiny.
This is just another meaningless EU propaganda job.
I certainly doubt that a proposal to abolish the Commission
- the first thing that should be done - would be taken up by your good selves
———————–
Efficient European Cooperation
http://www.ceolas.net/#eu1x
Introduction: How the EU works.. or doesn’t
Alternative ABC guide to the EU
The Union Breakup Alternative
Reforming the current EU:
A Smaller and More Effective Parliament
The End of the European Commission
The New Axis, European Parliament-Council of Ministers | European Senate
The Head of the European Government
European Budget Efficiency and Local Democracy
An Irish Bedtime Story for all Nice Children and not so Maastricht Adults…
November 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
If we could have a woman as the new president, we would be the first major nation to be led by a woman. It would be nice. Not only: in times of crisis, women often start from the persons and the everyday work, instead of megalomaniac millennial plans. Exactly what we need now.
November 15th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Great. Let`s get one million signatures to make the UK leave the EU.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Peter in Ireland, I’m afraid, makes an excellent point. How this proposal is structured - number of countries etc - is a minor detail. For surely you are not going to rule out a good proposition that has overwhelming support but comes from (let’s say) 5 countries and not 6 - or whatever the rules may eventually be. That would be foolishness. The essence of this proposition needs to be flexibility and simplicity and trust.
But far more important than the ‘rules’ of the proposal - is the question of whether the Commission (or anyone else) will pay any attention whatsoever to the popular will. Let’s take two causes which you yourself support - first a better gender balance in EU appointments; and secondly, a single seat for the European Parliament. You know as well as anyone that running up 1 million signatures for either of thee propositions would not be difficult. But would anyone take any notice?
So unless (as Peter suggests) there is some more absolute commitment to listening to a significant body of opinion and then acting (after perhaps by mounting a wider consultation) then this proposal will simply result in greater cynicism on the part of those who hold all along that the EU had no intention of listening anyway.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Paolo Tramannoni,
What do you mean “first major nation to be led by a woman” ?!?
There was Margaret Thatcher of Britian in the eighties and who do you think leads India today ?
Also ; What nation ?!?! The EU,we are told, is a gathering of 27 nation states .
November 16th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
“I have my own view; the right man in the right place is often a woman!”
In an EU designed from the ground up to be anti-democratic, I reckon one man woman with an AK47 has more chance of being listened to than 1,000,000 gullible fools conned into signing a pointless petition.
Millions have already petitioned their leaders by voting NO in three referenda on the CONstitution but nobody took any notice then and they won’t take any notice next time, or the time after… ad nauseam…
We have already seen petitions in action in the UK - (http://petitions.number10.gov.uk) - where the people are not only ignored but are then subjected to low-grade Emailed rebuttals of the petitioners’ proposals by the same jobsworths working for the same politicians who never had any intention of taking any notice in the first place. Yes, I sign them from time to time as a form of protest vote but I have zero expection of any action.
Unless a petition is binding then it is useless!
November 16th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Dear Commissioner:
One of my favorite EU Companies, Nokia, is in the news for the wrong reasons : the media talk is that Nokia may buy Palm, the smart phone maker and run by Rubinstein, and the talk also is to get this neocon darling Rubinstein inside Nokia and start the Trojan Horse : he gets the door of Nokia open and all his neocons go right in : Financial, Strategy, contracts, patents, etc….in my humble opinion, this is a very bad idea…will Nokia fall for the trap? does anybody in the EU is watching ? and this darling is also a friend of Ellison and Catz of Oracle, a nightmare !
November 18th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Today 18/11/2009 at 13.15 concentration in front of the Council of the European Union (place Schuman) to ask more women for top jobs in the EU.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
This citizens initiative is another cynical attempt by the EU to persuade us it actually cares what people think.
Millions of people vote in referendums and if they don’t go the EU’s way the results are ignored.
Anyone stupid enough to think the EU will take note of a million signatures if they don’t like what they ask for is welcome to take part in this new EU-promoting stunt.
Most of us will have better things to do with our time than to plead with arrogant, out of touch and elitist EU flunkeys and bureaucrats.
Edith Cresson for EU president.
November 18th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
This is an extremely interesting topic (not because I’m researching about it :-), but it should not be rushed through, as the definition of the details of the proposal is extremely interesting. The objective of the rules should be to make it possible for the organising committee to funnel to the Commission legally feasible proposals, that the College of Commissioners would have to discuss politically: that is, whether it will transform it into a proposal or not and why. This can certainly contribute to the emergence of public opinions, but I think it is important that the Commission provides financial and technical support to the organisers in order to ensure that a maximum of initiatives can make it to the last stage. That’s certainly a step towards politisation.
And for Eurosceptics: leaving the community is a new right of member states under Lisbon, but nothing that the Commission can initiate. So you rather have to bring your million signatures to your Foreign Ministries and see whether they give rise to a debate on this or not.
November 18th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Luis, the problem, in my view, is that the cart is before the horse. I cannot see how this scheme will be able to claim to represent people’s views if it is not known if the eu itself has majority popular support. Surely many of those who refuse to accept its legitimacy will not take part, thus skewing the results. I also think that the use of the word citizen is unhelpful as I, for one, cannot see how anybody can be a citizen of a quango.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Luis,
EUrophiles keep changing this democracy tune. One minute it`s Ireland cannot hold up the rest of the EU because it is only 4 million people, just 1% of the EU population, next it`s Ireland must sign the Lisbon treaty because the majority there voted yes the second time round.
So we get The EU Must Integrate More Because Most Of The People Want It, but if most people dont, it`s please see your (token) MPs.
Then of course, there`s the No, No, No, Yes.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Women Central to Efforts to Deal With Climate Change, Says New UNFPA Report
18 November 2009
LONDON - Women bear the disproportionate burden of climate change, but have so far been largely overlooked in the debate about how to address problems of rising seas, droughts, melting glaciers and extreme weather, concludes The State of World Population 2009, released today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
November 19th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
I find the topic fascinating for the following reason:
In Germany we have an immature epetition system of bundestag and it is hardly possible to get enough signatures. However, a political party as the social democrats have more than 300 000 members just in Germany and even the libdems 75000. With other words, this provides a path to an pan-European party driven initiative right.
On the other hand Parliament can refuse Commission proposals it does not like. I am still a bit confused about the Cashman report. There the Parliament adopted a position and then referred it back to Committee stage, so formally the 1st reading is not over, right?
I am all for getting Parliament the initiative right to formally request the Commission to prepare a legislative proposal.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Speaking as a British citizen, I’d like a Citizen’s initiative to mean that everyone who speaks for the EU should have, at least once in their career, faced a vote for elected office and won. I’m not asking for much: county councillor, church warden, school governor. So we don’t get faceless, unelected aparatchicks getting jobs because their husband is a friend of one of the major governments in Europe.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Ask a million people in EU countries if we need two non-entities on big, taxpayer funded wages to do two new, pointless EU jobs and the aswer will be a resounding no.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
More useless pointless rhetoric.
The hated EU is hated, and no amount of garbage swilling back patting will make people change their minds.
By the way, thanks for the entertainment, the votes for the new Prez and Unknown woman who helped push the hated Lisbon treaty through parliament while making sure no referenda took place was highly amusing. Its good to see the pointlessness of the EU under written by the appointment of the unknown belgian, and this high priestess of EU arse licking or whatever you are calling her today, yes, well known. I am sure foreign ministers all over the world are concerned about her. Well, concerned about who she is, having not heard of her before.
What a giggle.
November 21st, 2009 at 2:46 pm
So the ‘Fourth Reich’ has come into being, now with a Fuhrer at the head. Its funny but in history that was also not a democracy, as people gave it away. If there is to be a leader, where was the election amongst all of the citizens? Funnily enough backroom deals being done once again, with a traitor like Gordon Brown leading the way.
November 24th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
More about the Citizen’s Initiative
As said above,
1 million signatures should mean that
the people’s proposal is launched to the European Parliament and Council of Ministers for consideration,
just like an ordinary European Commission proposal
This also means that a people’s proposal is scrutinized as it is written.
With the Citizens Initiative as it stands,
even when a proposal is actually taken up by the Commission,
they can of course alter it to suit themselves and make it barely recognizable from the original
The Citizen’s Initiative was of course also dealt with in the last post
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/wallstrom/goodbye-lisbon-hello-copenhagen/#comment-167511
.
November 28th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
There does not appear to be a commissioner for ENERGY. Now that solar panel are made as roof tiles - can’t we have the roofs of Europe powering Europe instead of Power stations. It would cost the same, be low maintenace and clean. This is a time for people who are looking to the future with imagination - do something positive for the people of Europe. You will be remembered for your vision.
November 30th, 2009 at 7:21 am
By the way, thanks for the entertainment, the votes for the new Prez and Unknown woman who helped push the hated Lisbon treaty through parliament
December 27th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
I would say the european union is as near as communism you can get without calling it communism. Dictateriols of what we can do ,and say ,and control of the masses without consultation is typical of Stalinism. I refuse to be part of it and i am not in the European union and never will be despite New loony Labours betrayal and signing the lisbon treaty. It as shown its self for what it is from the off by not having a democratic vote to see if the people of the variouse countries want to be in or out, And if they cannot be honest from the start there is no chance of them ever being honest.
Sorry for not being a good European comrade.