Who can launch an ECI?

At the beginning you have to form a citizens‘ committee and register your ECI at the European Commission. The committee is a group of at least seven citizens from at least seven different EU member states, one of whom will serve as contact person in dealings with the European Commission.

What topics are admissible for an ECI?

The European Commission will check if the ECI is admissible, then register and publish it on a Commission-run website. Citizens’ initiatives which manifestly fall outside the legal competence of the European Commission or the EU in general will not be registered. If the Commission refuses to register an ECI, the organizers may appeal the decision to the European Court of Justice.

Organizers must indicate to which treaty article their ECI relates. However, even if this is incorrect, the ECI may still be admissible. The European Commission maintains that initiatives requiring an amendment to the EU treaties are not admissible.

The Commission may legally only refuse to register ECIs which manifestly:

• fall outside the framework of the Commission’s powers,
• are abusive or frivolous,
• are contrary to the democratic values of the Union.

Rules for signature collection

When the organisers of the ECI have received confirmation of their registration and their initiative has been published, they can start collecting signatures. They have 12 months to collect 1 million valid signatures.

• Any EU citizen who is eligible to vote in European elections can sign an ECI.
• Signatures can be collected in all official EU languages; the sig- nature forms will contain a translation into each language of the wording of the initiative.
• To support an ECI, usually the name, address, date and place of birth, nationality and signature is sufficient. However, many countries require the personal identification number as well.

Next step after the the signature gathering

The organizers submit the signatures to the relevant competent authority in each EU member state for validation. Not all signatures will be declared valid - therefore, an initiative should collect more than the necessary signatures (around 20%). Furthermore, national signature quotas equal to 750 times the number of MEPs must be reached in at least seven different member states. Quotas vary from 3750 in Malta to 74,250 in Germany (see table).

Authorities in the Member state validate the signatures within three months and send the organizers a certificate which states the number of valid signatures.