Since 1 April 2012, all European citizens maintain a new EU citizenship right: through the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), 1 Million European citizens own the right to invite the European Commission to submit a proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaty. The IEP monitors the establishment of this new instrument of participative democracy as part of the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon on an academic level.
As an instrument of participative democracy, the ECI offers the opportunity to expedite democracy in the EU. The IEP, therefore, deals with new fields of research by focusing on the EU’s potential to initiate transnational discursive spheres and to include new actors and citizens in EU decision-making processes. The ECI is, at the same time, accompanied by extensive skepticism of the civil society regarding its implementation. According to the upcoming evaluation of the ECI regulations in 2015, questions concerning the implementation is also of interest to the IEP.
In issue 1/2012 of integration Rudolf Hrbek, Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the IEP, gives an overview of previous efforts to strengthen the role of citizens. This article, after describing the genesis of this treaty provision and explaining …
Annette Knaut, Universität Koblenz-Landau, and Julian Plottka, IEP, discuss whether the ECI as a newly introduced instrument of citizen participation offers an opportunity to foster European democracy on a European level. In a provisional empirical analysis, they conclude that the …