European Citizens’ Initiative public hearing

The public hearing brought together representatives from the “Right2Water” Citizens’ Committee, MEPs and the European Commission, which will react to the initiative’s proposals by March 20th to say whether it will table new legislation. The response from the public was huge, as testified by the crowded room and more than 450 accredited participants.The Citizens’ Committee, the organisers and the hundreds of activists who ran the signature collection campaign were all present in the room for the public hearing, and urged the European Commission to guarantee access to water and sanitation as a human right through appropriate legislation. This would mean promoting the provision of water and sanitation as essential public services for all EU citizens, and giving a legal undertaking that water services will not be liberalised in the EU. The majority of MEPs attending the hearing shared the view that access to water is a basic human right, but some of them also pointed out that rules on providing all citizens with sufficient and clean drinking water and adequate sanitation remain the remit of EU member states.

Hailing the first-ever hearing on a Citizens’ Initiative as “a milestone in the history of European democracy being a monumental step forward from a Europe of governments to a Europe of citizens,” Gerald Häfner (Greens/EFA MEP, Germany), representing the European Parliament as the Petitions Committee (PETI) Rapporteur for the Citizens’ Initiative and Coordinator of the Greens Group in the EP Constitutional Affairs Committee, said “today, the EU is switching to ‘listening mode’ as citizens present their proposals in the EP. The question now is how we can better legislate on an issue that is crucial. We are all here to recognise that clean water is a human right and should remain in public hands”.

Just a few days ago, the PETI committee also unveiled its study on ECI and first lessons of implementation while tackling other issues and voted on two reports such as:

• the successful adoption of the 2013’s EU Citizenship Report;
• the petitions on immigration;
• the petitions on fundamental rights dealing with child custody/protection.

Cora Pfafferott, speaking on behalf of Democracy International, the European Citizen Action Service and the Initiative and Referendum Institute Europe (three pioneering organisations which have joined up for the first ECI support centre, a new initiative aiming to provide independent information and to give first-hand advice on how to organise and implement an ECI), explained that this public hearing could also be considered a “litmus test” for the actual, impacting success of the European Citizens’ Initiative, which is the first agenda-setting instrument for citizens at transnational level in history.

This also is because EU legislation on the ECI instrument does not provide any specific rules on the actual procedure of the hearing, and that the ECI is a non-binding instrument giving the European Commission the leeway to decide whether to accept the citizen-initiated law proposals or not. For all these reasons, the outcome of this public hearing on “Right2Water” will be a decisive milestone for the future of the European Citizens’ Initiative in view of the upcoming revision of its legislation in 2015. Its success also demonstrates to citizens how valuable it is to go through the effort of drafting a law proposal and collecting one million signatures, which are required to submit the proposal to the European Commission.

Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commissionin in charge of Inter-Institutional Relations and Administration, declared that “Citizens have shown a very clear proof that this instrument of participatory democracy works, that they would like to have a direct say and to communicate with EU institutions on how its agenda should be shaped”.

At the same time, is it also important to remember that, in spite of the clear success of “Right2Water”, very few people actually know how exactly, since April 1st, 2012, we as European citizens’ can directly influence European legislation through a “European Citizens’ Initiative” (also known as ECI). This new tool for participatory democracy, introduced as a result of the Treaty of Lisbon with the express purpose of increasing participation and direct democracy at the EU level, allows citizens to collect at least one million signatures (0.2% of the EU population) online or offline to call directly on the European Commission to consider introducing a specific legislative proposals of interest to them in an area of EU competence, thereby changing EU law. If they succeed, as we hope for our very first initiative to reach the public hearing stage, the first ECIs will be truly recognised as a great change in European decision-making process and agenda setting, although there are still so many challenges and barriers that make it difficult, and continue to make it difficult, for organisers to reach the number of one million signatures required to submit the proposal. Problems such as the differing requirements in each Member State (ranging from ID number to full address and father’s name that those who sign must give), the difficulties of successfully, correctly and quickly implementing the online signature collection system, the continuous impediments with backend features of signature collection software (OCS) in working smoothly, and hurdles due to the long time required to mobilise as many supporters in as many countries as possible to get behind the campaign with no specific funds available are still to be overcome. These difficulties were also expressed yesterday with the occasion of the public hearing by some of ECIs pioneers and organisers who launched their own initiatives in 2012 and 2013.

Since April 2012, more than 40 ECIs have been registered with the European Commission: 17 were refused as they dealt with issues outside the competencies of the Commission, 6 were withdrawn by the organisers and 5 failed to reach the required one million signature threshold.

Only seven initiatives are currently gathering statements of support, covering a broad spectrum of issues including the employability of younger generations through investment in education, equal opportunities for education and training, the female entrepreneurship gender equality legislation and the the promotion of pluralism and freedom of the media in Europe, the latter initiated by European Alternatives with many other organisations thorough Europe.

Although three initiatives have reportedly managed to gather enough support so far (apart from “Water is a human right / Right2Water”, we can also mention here the ECIs “Stop Vivisection” and “One of Us” with more than one million signatures each collected in less than 12 months) and the ECI “Water is a human right” success as the first qualifying for a public hearing with 1,680,172 valid signatures (out of total number of 1,884,790 signatures delivered to national authorities between 10 September and 23 September 2013 by the organisers and activists), many challenges and hurdles still lay ahead for all ECI organisers: very few people actually have a clear understanding of the ECI tool, and the procedures for conducting an initiative are still far from being citizen-friendly. Finally, in spite of the success of the public hearing yesterday, we not know until March 20th how a successful ECI will be honoured by the institutions.