Opening speech by the EESC President at European Citizens' Initiative Day

In the course of the day given over to the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) on 13 April 2015, EESC President Henri Malosse, accompanied by European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans and European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly, opened the meeting with the following words:

People power is for me absolutely vital. As you know, I have conducted my term of office under the "Wind of Change" banner, as I believe that citizens represent the driving force for European integration.

People power is at the heart of European integration. The right to present a citizens' initiative is the only part of Article 11 of the Treaty of Lisbon to have been fully and effectively applied.

We at the EESC strongly support the implementation of Article 11. In this regard, we were actively involved in an event held on 2 and 3 March with Laimdota Straujuma, Prime Minister of Latvia. At the event, we launched a roadmap prepared with our colleagues Andris Gobiņš and Connie Reuter for the implementation of Article 11. We also put forward relevant proposals to the European Parliament rapporteurs Mercedes Bresso, Elmar Brok and Guy Verhofstadt, to feed into their discussions on the future of the European treaties.

In my view, the citizens' initiative and participatory democracy are the two factors that could reshape the European constitution. As you are aware, the ECI is the target of much criticism, often focusing on the fact that the two successful initiatives did not meet with the hoped-for response from the previous Commission. But the criticism goes further: the authors of initiatives point to budgetary problems. We have seen that the initiatives attracting more than a million signature had to take on budgets passing the EUR 100 000 mark. What is more, the complex procedures, lack of communication, lack of transparency in how applications are examined and unresponsiveness means that the criticism of the ECI is largely justified.

In the meantime, the EESC - European civil society's institutional body - has not stood idly by, and over the last two years we have, thanks to a working group, introduced a whole series of instruments:

• a guide on citizens' initiative opinions which has now become a passport;
• the ECI Day events;
• networking of all citizens' initiatives through our contacts.

We have also decided that all initiatives accepted by the European Commission can be presented to our plenary sessions (we have so far invited eight), and I would now appeal to those of you who are organising one: contact me directly and I will be delighted to invite you to one of our plenary sessions to give your initiatives a hearing.

And today, I can announce two new actions we will be launching:

• Firstly, our translation services at the EESC will now be available to translate your initiatives, once endorsed by the Commission, into the EU's 23 languages. This service we are offering you will be a real help.
• Secondly, we are setting up a documentary database developed with ECAS.

These initiatives should make the task of those preparing and presenting citizens' initiative significantly easier.

This is however only scratching the surface, as while these steps will improve matters, they will not solve the underlying problem. We fully support the 11 proposals that have been put forward as of course we need more transparency in the procedure for examining the initiatives, of course we must use the social networks and the digital agenda is one of the new Commission's priorities.

But in my view, these remain technical improvements.

I believe that there are still two major problems to be tackled. Number one: ECI analysis must not remain exclusively between the authors and the European Commission. The Parliament has introduced hearings: I think this is a first step, but it is not enough. My proposal is that when initiatives reach more than a million signatures, the Commission should request the EESC to draw up an exploratory opinion. This would shed more light on the subject and offer greater guarantees of transparency in the process for the authors.

Number two: many initiatives fail because they have difficulty in gathering a million signatures, but this does not mean that the efforts made by thousands of citizens should simply be discarded. An example: I was the first to sign an initiative for "One Single Tariff" aimed at doing away with roaming charges. And the European Commission has taken up the idea even though the number of signatures did not reach a million. So, I think we should ensure that the efforts of those that do not reach the million mark can still be heard in one way or another.

The EESC could, for example, issue own-initiative opinions, and the Parliament own-initiative reports, for citizens' initiatives that have attracted 500 000 signatures. It shocks me, as a European citizens, to see hundreds of thousands of citizens make this effort just for it to end up in the waste-paper bin.

I was particularly struck by Jean-Claude Juncker's words - this new Commission is the European Union's last chance.

I agree; I am convinced that the gap between ordinary people and the European institutions has become dangerously wide. The ECIs are a way to bridge this gap. They are just window-dressing. Those who might have thought they were just for show are very, very wrong. Nothing less than the future of the European institution is at stake.

I became involved in European affairs 35 years ago. As I now come to the end of my term of office, with all my experience, I am convinced that the relationship between European people and the European venture is the key question for Europe's future.

Long live the European initiatives and let's make sure this tool is effective!

Henri Malosse, EESC President