We need even more reform of the ECI: A short-term and a long-term proposal

Despite some high hopes at its introduction, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) has not been a success story. To improve the democratic quality of the instrument, it is crucial to increase its efficacy. I propose two solutions: In the short term, the European Commission needs to drastically change its approach to ‘successful’ initiatives and let Parliament and the Council decide about their fate. In the long term, EU treaty changes should allow for transnational referenda as a truly innovative, and consequential, democratic instrument in Europe.

When the Treaty of Lisbon was ratified, its proponents pointed to the new European Citizens’ Initiative as part of the solution for the EU’s much-discussed ‘democratic deficit’. Innovatively, the collection of one million signatures allows campaigners to propose a piece of legislation to the European Commission. At the same time, relatively low minimum thresholds in at least a quarter of the EU member states must be met. This instrument is supposed to allow organised citizens, also those outside of the ‘Brussels bubble’, to influence policymaking at the EU level. ‘Get a greater say in the policies that affect your lives’ is the Commission’s promise concerning the ECI.

However, the history of the ECI shows how the instrument has not kept this promise. Since 2012, only six initiatives managed to collect the required signatures – less than one per year. When it comes to the four initiatives that already received an official response, the Commission never followed up with the exact proposal behind an initiative, not meeting the demands of the campaigners. This not only left many ECI activists disillusioned about opportunities of participation – but also made other civil society activists skeptical about considering the ECI as a potentially effective approach to influence the political process. Only recently have initiatives registration numbers gone up again. Crucially, public knowledge about the ECI has also remained very limited – only a minority of EU citizens realize that the instrument even exists.

While it is true that the ECI had some effect of agenda-setting within EU institutions and led to an increase of civil society players engaging with EU politics, the ECI has not become an effective tool of democratic participation. We should assess the instrument according to this latter dimension: Campaigners organise to make policy gains. In the end, democracy is all about ‘get[ting] a greater say in the policies that affect your lives’, Dominik Hierlemann and Christian Huesmann correctly point out the benefits of recent ECI reform. However, more change is needed. Here are two proposals to improve ECI campaigners’ chances of having a greater say.

In the short term, the European Commission needs to drastically alter its approach to ECIs. As is well known, the Commission is the EU’s legislative gatekeeper. It can block any initiative’s proposal, preventing the European Parliament and the Council to decide about any proposed piece of legislation by EU citizens. However, the European Parliament and the Council are much more democratically legitimised than the Commission. That is why in the case of successful ECI signature collection efforts, the Commission should voluntarily abstain from using its veto power provided by its monopoly on legislative initiative. To increase the impact of a successful ECI signature collection effort, the Commission should voluntarily pledge to respond to any ECI supported by one million EU citizens with a corresponding legislative initiative which then allows the more representative bodies of the EU – the European Parliament and the Council – to decide about the fate of a specific proposal. Similar instruments at the national level also always address legislatures. Of course, such a change in responding to ECI campaigns would require enormous self-constraint from the Commission – a voluntary commitment not to use power. However, given the current design of the ECI, it is the most straightforward way to boost the quality of the instrument and to increase the chances of the implementation of an ECI campaign – or to at least let the representatives of EU citizens to reject a given proposal. Importantly, as the question whether an ECI campaign is in line with the legal powers of the Commission is already decided at registration, there is no danger of the Commission proposing illegal measures. It is no surprise that also think-tanks such as Carnegie Europe have recently emphasized the need to get the European Parliament and national parliaments more involved in discussing ECI initiatives.

In the long-term, it is necessary to substantively reform the ECI as part of the next EU treaty change: a successful ECI signature collection effort should end up in a binding referendum at the EU level on the very issue at stake. Here, I follow suggestions such as the one by Bruno Kaufmann, calling for transnational EU direct democracy. Such a reform would allow all EU citizens to have a say on concrete issues. For that, it is thinkable to increase the ECI signature threshold from one million signatures to a (slightly) higher number, to avoid an excessive number of referenda. Also, like votes in the Council, qualified majority rules need to ensure that not only a majority of the EU population, but that also a majority of EU Member States agrees to a proposal. Transnational referenda may contribute to the formation of a ‘European public sphere’ – an important prerequisite for the democratisation of the EU polity. Importantly, such a reform of the instrument would also strongly increase the number of EU citizens interested in the ECI: They would feel that the instrument may provide an efficient mean to influence the political process, i.e. to have a greater say in the policies that affect their lives.