PRELIMINARY DRAFT CREATION OF A HELP DESK ON CITIZENS’ INITIATIVES

The ECAS project to develop a European Civil Society House (ECSH) has reached a stage where demand can be tested by launching experimental services. It would be logical to start with a help-desk on Citizens’ Initiatives.

How will the Citizens’ Initiatives look like?

The Citizens’ Initiative has its legal basis in the Article 11§4 of the Treaty of Lisbon: “Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European 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”. Before the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon, pilot initiatives were launched as early as in 2006, sometimes breaking the 1 million signatures threshold.

The Commission submitted in March 2010 a draft regulation receiving a response from the Council in June 2010 . Currently (July 2010), the proposal is being discussed in the European Parliament, which is expected to give an opinion in autumn 2010.
The most important elements of the draft proposal are:

- The proposed initiative should be related to an area falling within the competence of the Commission and should not be manifestly against the values of the European Union (e.g. it will not be possible to ask the Commission to reintroduce the death penalty) .
- The signatures should be coming at least from one third of the European member states. The European Parliament has suggested one quarter.
- The minimum number of signatures will be calculated on a digressively proportional basis, where smaller countries will be asked to provide a proportionally higher number of signatures.
- It will be possible to collect signatures online.
- Some proof of identification will be asked when registering an initiative. The validation of signatures will be carried out by the member states.
- After collecting 100,000 signatures, the Commission will investigate whether the initiative is admissible. - The timeframe for collecting the signatures will be limited to 12 months.
- The European Commission will adopt a communication on its results and its decision on the follow-up.

In what ways would the creation of a Helpdesk on Citizens’ Initiatives be advantageous for European citizens?

Taken into consideration all the requirements listed above, it emerges that the Commission has set high demands on the organisers of European Citizens’ Initiatives. During the public hearings organized by different fractions in the European Parliament, it became known that the European Commission will be requested to provide some advice and help to the organisers of a Citizens’ Initiative, especially in the fields of translation and access to background documents. However, there will be many important issues left aside that could be tackled by setting up an external, independent facility.
The creation of a Helpdesk on Citizens’ Initiatives would be of paramount importance for the three main reasons detailed below.

First, it is a priority

In early 2010, the Commission issued a green paper and organized a consultation exercise and hearing with interested parties before publishing its draft regulation on 31 March. Since then, the issue has been actively considered as a priority with different political groups in the European Parliament holding hearings. In the meantime, the Council of Ministers has been making progress. There is a consensus that the new regulation should be adopted before the end of the year, so that Citizens’ Initiatives can begin. Civil society organizations have been heavily involved in the debates and lobbied to make the rules and procedures and deadlines as user-friendly as possible.

Secondly, there are a number of concerns about the actual impact of Citizens’ Initiatives

In theory, over one million European citizens from a significant number of member states can present an initiative which could become law for 500 million people and set international standards. In practice, a number of concerns have been expressed during the consultations:

- Some initiatives could be extreme in character – for example encouraging violence or racial discrimination. The draft regulation allows for such initiatives to be rejected by the Commission. However, both grounds for refusal and rights of appeal need to be drafted with great care by reference to the Charter of fundamental rights. The ECSH help-desk would also need to establish its own values and guidelines about where it is willing to help and where not. Despite these difficulties, the danger of the extremist initiative may be exaggerated.
- The risk of disappointing expectations. Well-supported initiatives might nevertheless be rejected by the Commission. It is difficult to imagine the Commission under pressure from Brussels lobbies easily turn down a demand from 1 million citizens which meets all the conditions of the regulation. Nevertheless, the Commission maintains its freedom under Article 11 to decide whether to act, so that there is a danger of legitimate expectations being disappointed. Frustrations would result in increasing rather than reducing the gap between the EU and the citizens. This help desk is designed to reduce this risk to a significant extent.
- The risk of capture by large lobbies. Initiatives might only come from well organised and entrenched interests across the Union, rather than genuinely from citizens. Collecting over 1 million signatures from a significant number of member states is harder than most policy makers imagine and cannot be done without some organizations, so that civil society organizations must be behind the initiatives, as must be the media. However, it would not be a success if the instrument was only used by large and powerful organizations which in any case have a voice with EU legislators whilst those with an equally valid case fail to meet the target through lack of resources and organizational structure. A well organised and competent help desk can help to create a more level playing field.
- The lack of alternatives to Citizens’ Initiatives. In case an initiative is rejected, there may be alternatives. Many members of the European Parliament are anxious not to see citizens addressing a demand to the European Union simply turned away. In publishing its response to a Citizens’ Initiative, the Commission would do well to make it clear what options are open to the organizers. Again, a help desk can assist in the search for alternatives.

Thirdly, there are many good ideas for Citizens’ Initiatives which simply may not succeed in practice:

- The link to EU competence is not well established so that the Commission might declare that it has no basis to act. According to the Council of ministers position on the draft regulation, the organizations would have to collect 100,000 signatures before they would receive an opinion from the Commission on the admissibility of the initiative. And, on many issues, the legal competence of the EU is non-existent or narrowly defined, even though the public might see them as very European concerns. Legal advice is a core function of the help desk.
- The idea is good and is one on which the Union can act, but it is not of a nature to easily attract public support. Those closely associated with a particular issue do not always see that barrier. There are also some issues which are so new that they do not have organizational weight behind them and have only been raised in a few member states. In this case, the Citizens’ Initiatives may or may not be the answer, or may not yet be the answer. A help desk can assist with advice about national contracts and delivery mechanisms but also propose alternatives to getting the issue raised with the EU if it looks as if the target of 1 million is unobtainable.
- The initiative may succeed and be supported by the Commission but the chances of a successful outcome and a sufficient majority support among the 27 member states in the Council look remote. This also is a risk to consider.

In the discussions of the draft regulation many observers and some members of the European Parliament have regrets about the lack of a “citizen infrastructure”. The regulation provides for transparency so that where initiatives are launched, sources and amounts of funding will be made public. On the other hand, there is no provision for financial support for initiatives in the public interest. The lack of citizen infrastructure may be regrettable but it is also understandable. No one really knows what will happen in practice with European Citizens’ Initiatives. As ECAS proposed in its submission, there will be a revision after 3 years. That would be the right time to examine the need for a “citizen infrastructure”. In the meantime, a help desk can attempt to fill the gap and also identify needs.

SETTING UP THE HELP DESK

The preliminary steps before the help desk is launched are important, but they should not be over-ambitious, because it is difficult to assess in advance how much demand these will be. There are three main tasks:
- Creating a web-platform. This should have links to Citizens’ Initiatives on the Europa site, those of other CSOs and think tanks. The web pages should include: the EU regulation and the legislative process in full, background and comments, national examples, European initiatives already tried, press coverage and academic articles. There should be a question and answer guide to how to develop a Citizens’ Initiative.
- Building a multi-disciplinary civil society task force to provide advice and support. Such a task force should be assembled from two different backgrounds: people with sufficient professional experience of the workings of the EU in fields relevant to the proposed initiative; experts in the techniques of direct democracy, the organisation of debates, campaigns and the collection of signatures face-to-face or online. The composition of the task force could be adapted to each initiative depending on the needs identified. The skills normally required would include:  Excellent knowledge of European law and institutional issues, including drafting skills;
 Knowledge of civil society organisations in the relevant fields across EU-27 and other sources of support;
 Fundraising skills because in many countries it will be necessary to organise debates, mobilise volunteers, maintain and set up web-platforms;
 Experts on the do’s and don’ts of signature collection to meet the approval of the public and to meet the criteria for verification by the organisers and the authorities in member states; 
People with experience of running European campaigns and/or Citizens’ Initiatives.

- Setting up a promotional and media campaign to raise awareness of the help desk. Ideally, the help desk should be set up quickly because promoters of Citizens’ Initiatives would do well to start now on the preparatory work before the regulation is adopted. The opportunity for making a more massive impact is likely to come at the same time as the announcement of the adoption of the regulation. This is bound to lead to significant press coverage of the measure and how it might work in practice.

LIST OF TASKS FOR THE HELP DESK

The help desk task force should be a hands-on accompaniment through all stages of the process, but only to the extent that the promoters wish. In all likelihood, the organisers of an initiative would see outside support as more useful for certain stages rather than others, and to make for deficiencies in expertise only in limited areas. The following checklist represents the maximum number of tasks, from which a selection should be made.

(i) The idea stage. This is primarily for the organisers and no outside assistance can really be a substitute. The help desk could play a role of “devil’s advocate” or produce a SWOT analysis. It could be brought in to advise on certain aspects such as legal analysis, promotional tools or procedural aspects.
(ii) Admissibility of the initiative. The help desk could give an opinion on whether the initiative proposed is in the legal competence of the Union and the Treaty articles which can be cited as a basis. Often there are issues about choice of legal basis which can well determine chances and outcome of the legislative process. Help with drafting may be necessary to meet the often conflicting requirements of meeting EU legislative criteria and making the initiative as acceptable and eye-catching as possible.
(iii) Outreach strategy. The help desk may be a useful sounding board for testing ideas about motivating existing networks or setting up new ones to collect signatures. Advice on media and communication strategy and external support can also be useful. In particular, the help desk should assist with adding contacts in countries where the organisers have none or where they are too weak to deliver significant numbers of signatures.
(iv) Fundraising. This is likely to be the main issue for most genuine Citizens’ Initiatives. Fundraising can be targeted at a large number of objectives: - Help with translation and dissemination; - Organising public debates; - Supporting the work of volunteers; - Expenses for European strategy meetings. A variety of different sources and types of cash or in-kind support are likely to be possible for a Citizens’ Initiative. Sources are likely to come from different geographical levels. In other words, depending on the issue and the organisations involved, fundraising will not be easy and a variety of sources may be necessary.
(v) Signature collection. The help desk should draw in different kinds of expertise: Firstly, there are those who can assist the organisers in making sure that the signature collection techniques - face-to-face or online - meet the national and European criteria, to be sure that the initiative is not rejected on procedural grounds when verification of signatures takes place. The other kind of expertise would be to learn lessons from promoters of other Citizens’ Initiatives about the ease or difficulty of obtaining signatures and the do’s and don’ts involved. This could take the form of a training session or seminar.
(vi) Submission of the initiative. ECAS has not been alone in demanding that when the initiative is presented there should be a chance for the promoters to be heard by the Commission and involve also their elected representatives in the European Parliament at this stage. Whether or not this is provided for, there is no doubt that the organisers, especially if they are not already established in Brussels, will need advice and support at this stage.
(vii) Evaluation and next steps. The work load involved in collecting over 1 million signatures is not to be underestimated. In order to help the organisers, its own future work and others taking up this challenge, an evaluation of the steps taken up to the submission of the initiative may be useful. In this way, know how can be accumulated by citizens. This should include of course an assessment of what could happen next during the decision-making process. (viii) Alternatives to Citizens’ Initiatives. Article 11 of the Treaty is a fine instrument giving citizens the chance to debate, form coalitions across borders and not just react to the EU, but propose to the EU in their own terms. However, this is not always an achievable aim, and the danger is that the organisers and the EU Institutions start to see collecting over 1 million signatures as a “sine qua non” which it is not. One of the most valuable tasks for a help desk would be to advise on alternative ways to get an issue on the EU agenda (i.e. initiatives from the Council Presidency or other governments, support in the European Parliament or sustained action by European umbrella bodies representing civil society). In the case of initiatives already launched and not meeting their objective, the help desk should also advise about the possibility of appeal to the European ombudsman or the Court of First Instance if it can be shown that the Commission has been guilty of maladministration in its treatment of the initiative.