European Citizens' Initiative

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) gives citizens the right to directly engage in setting the legislative agenda for the EU. Once signatures supporting a policy proposal have been collected and verified from at least one million EU citizens, the European Commission is obliged to consider that proposal.

It can, but is not required to, respond by proposing new legislation. The ECI is therefore not a decision-making instrument. The first ECI may be registered on 1 April 2012. The specific legal procedures for launching an ECI are set out in EU regulation 211/2011.

Background

The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) has been included in the Treaty on European Union. This is a result of our work. With several campaigns we successfully worked for the inclusion of the ECI. Afterwards we promoted citizen-friendly rules governing its use.
Currently we monitor the implementation of the ECI and provide guidance to groups and individuals on using the ECI.