On 30 November, the AFCO Committee voted on the regulation for the Citizens’ Initiative. Following the recommendations issued by the AFCO rapporteurs on the Citizens’ Initiative (MEPs Alain Lamassoure  from EPP and Zita Gurmai  from S & D), as well as the opinion by MEPs Gerald Häfner (Greens) and Diana Wallis (ALDE), rapporteurs for the PETI Committee, the Commission’s  draft regulation was simplified. Notably, the major improvements were:

·The admissibility check of an initiative after 300,000 signatures was discarded in favour of an earlier admissibility check;

·A Citizens’ Committee of at least seven citizens from different Member States will be a requirement for registering an initiative;

·The minimum amount of countries from which signatures should come from was lowered to 7 instead of 9;

·A hearing with the European Parliament and the Commission will be organized for the initiators of successful initiatives.

The new specifications represent a great improvement from the first proposal from the European Commission, and surely testify the European Parliament’s commitment to closing a fair deal in the name of their citizens, who will soon be able to use the first-ever tool for Europe-wide participatory democracy. 

On the negative side, other serious questions remain open to debate. In particular, the requirement of ID or passport numbers in some Member States (for whose abolition ECAS has been lobbying) remains in the hands of the Member States. Likewise, the timeframe for collecting the signatures has not been extended to 18 or 24 months, as the rapporteurs and CSOs wanted. Even among the amendments that did pass, suspicion can arise from the odd arrangement between the Commission and the Parliament for a public hearing that is with the European Parliament but with the required presence of the Commission – is it an attempt of the Commission to skip its responsibility while technically saving appearances?

However, ECAS is glad that there will be a hearing between the citizens and the EU having been among the first organization to promote this idea.

From ECAS perspective as a CSO that has been deeply engaged in the Citizens’ Initiative from the very beginning, it is hard to determine whether we can claim that yesterday’s vote was a victory for the future of citizens’ participation in Europe –or to what extent it is indeed a victory. When is a glass half full or half empty? One can greet the news coming from the European Parliament with great enthusiasm at first, but on second thought these are reasons for doubt.

What clearly emerges from the AFCO communication is that the Council and Commission still retain authority over the decisive points of the regulation, and that even if an important battle has been won yesterday, CSOs and the Parliament will need to fight for the best Citizens’ Initiative that can be achieved. 

Last-minute negotiations are taking place between the Commission, the Council and the Parliament. On its side, ECAS will continue lobbying for a citizen-friendly initiative. We will keep advising the European Parliament to take its time instead of rushing into an agreement that can be disadvantageous for the European citizens.  Furthermore, we support  the petition launched by  AVAAZ and ECI Campaign for  a further simplification of the initiative which has managed to collect more than 175,000 signatures in less than one week (100,000 of which in less than 36 hours), demonstrating the widespread interest in building the European public sphere.

The Parliament is scheduled to vote on the Citizens’ Initiative in the plenary session of 15 December.

Elisabeth Lasky – ECAS

On 15 July 2010, the Centre for Parliamentary Studies organised a symposium in Brussels entitled ‘Equality and Diversity in Europe: Tackling Multiple Discrimination against Migrants’. The event was chaired by Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez (delegate of the University of Manchester). Other delegate speakers included Floya Anthias (delegate of the Roehampton University), Suzanne Monkasa (delegate of the Conseil des communautés africaines en Europe, Réseau des Femmes Immigrées d’Europe), Doris Peschke (delegate of the Churches Commission for Migrants in Europe), Michaël Privot (delegate of the European Network against Racism), Patrick Taran (delegate of the ILO) and John Wrench (delegate for the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights).

The central topic of the symposium was the notion of ‘multiple discrimination’. All presentations aimed at a better understanding of this phenomena, whether being its roots, its characteristics or even its preventive measures, on the European level. As Taran put it, there is an increasing demand for migration and mobility in Europe. At the same time, Anthias cleverly stated, the existing EU legislation is primarily concerned with ‘equality of treatment’, while somewhat undermining ‘equality of outcome’ when tackling discrimination and multiple discrimination. This discrepancy coupled with the public opinion’s generally poor understanding of the complexities of discrimination results in problems of equality that were addressed at this symposium.

As Privot explained, multiple discrimination occurs when a person is discriminated against for multiple reasons. In addition, all guest speakers shared the perception that multiple discrimination counts for more than the mere sum of all grounds of discrimination. Unfortunately, that view is not reflected in the current EU legislation. According to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, there are distinctly defined types of discrimination* which, moreover, are treated as mutually exclusive and cannot be employed in combination with one another. On the other hand, even when the EU legislation is attempting to tackle the issue by adopting a more multidimensional approach, Anthias was quick to observe that these new EU directives are ineffective. According to the professor of Roehampton University, because the directives are not intersectional, all grounds of discrimination are distinct, ultimately failing to notice the interweaving between the different grounds, without mentioning the problem of defining certain grounds (i.e. ethnicity).

Lastly, it is obvious from all the guest speakers’ presentations that the EU needs to massively improve its legislation if it is to deal with the growing problem of multiple discrimination. Within an organisation such as the EU, with its diverse Member states and different societies, who do not necessarily share the same perceptions of social reality phenomena, as shown through Wrench’s comparison of newer and older EU Member states’ citizens’ awareness of discrimination** , it is difficult to see how a consensual opinion may emerge on multiple discrimination and the ways to deal with it. In addition, Taran pointed out how current testing methods fail to single out the input of the different discrimination grounds in a case of multiple discrimination, so that we never truly know the impact of the interweaving process. Until these issues are resolved, we can only hope that the civil society organisations’ continue to provide valuable insight in a field which has yet to be fully understood.

* Art. 21 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU states that only sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age and sexual orientation are considered as possible grounds of discrimination.

** The results survey on employment discrimination, conducted by the EU Agency for the Fundamental Rights suggested that, as a general trend, the older EU Member states (i.e. Western Europe) had a better overall understanding and were more conscious about employment discrimination than in the newer Member states (i.e. Eastern Europe).

by Darko Brizic

On 29 June 2010, the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the European Stability Initiative (ESI) jointly presented a film as well as a panel debate in Brussels which was entitled ‘Kosovo – Breaking the Isolation’. The event was chaired by Heather Grabbe (Director of OSI-Brussels). Other members of the panel included Bajram Rexhepi (Kosovo Interior Minister), Tanja Fajon (Member of the European Parliament), Luan Shllaku (Executive Director of KFOS), Ruud Van Enk (Deputy Head of the Kosovo Issues Unit and member of the DG Enlargement European Commission) as well as Besa Shahini (ESI Senior Analyst).

The central topic of the panel discussion was the visa liberalisation issue concerning Kosovo. Indeed, the notion of free movement raises serious questions concerning citizens of Kosovo, since, according to Henley & Partners’ ‘Visa Restriction Index’, Kosovo is currently the country which has the lowest number of visa-free destinations*. Moreover, there has been a natural tendency to link the issuing of visas with global security in an area. However, as Ms. Grabbe expressed, ‘more visas’ does not necessarily translate into ‘more security’ if the procedure is not applied correctly. That is precisely why Mr Rexhepi stressed how Kosovo needs to have a ‘roadmap’ or ‘strategy’, regarding the application of the visa liberalisation process.

On the grounds of her experience in the European Parliament, Ms Fajon discussed in greater depth the EU’s involvement of this issue. She stated that there has been strong support within the EU Parliament and that the next steps were to attempt to convince the European Council and possible partners to start discussions with Kosovo concerning a possible strategy for visa liberalisation. Among the biggest challenges Kosovo faces on this issue, Fajon pointed out two, namely the reintegration of people who left Kosovo and wish to come back, as well as educating the younger generations to EU values and what the visa liberalisation concept means in practice.

While there may be some scepticism in EU Institutions over the strategy for visa liberalisation in Kosovo, Mr Shllaku suggested five arguments in favour of the process: it would provide consensus within the Kosovar society, it would reinforce the fight against corruption, it would bring Kosovo closer to the EU, it would modify the scope of the current visa liberalisation discussions and finally, it would transform the Kosovar mentality in a sense that it could potentially view Serbia as a neighbour and competitor and less as an aggressor.

Ultimately, as discussions progress in the scope of a Kosovo – EU dialogue, substantial short or medium-term progress can only be limited in the current state of affairs. An issue that is intrinsically connected to the issue of visa liberalisation in Kosovo is, of course, Kosovo’s status as a political entity. Out of all 27 EU Member States, only five do not support Kosovo’s controversial unilateral declaration of independence. To that number we must also add China and Russia, who both bear tremendous political weight, being two members of the Security Council of the UN. As long as important political actors as the ones mentioned above do not fully endorse Kosovo’s statehood, it is doubtful that the visa liberalisation discussions will improve in the near future.

* Even though Kosovo does not officially appear in the Index, ESI found 5 destinations which are currently visa-free for Kosovars. That number is lower than the lowest ranked State in the Index, namely Afghanistan, which has at the moment 22 visa-free destinations.

by Darko Brizic

The ‘no – votes’ in France and the Netherlands sparked realisation of the lack of faith shown in the EU institutions and a need to reduce the democratic deficit. The direct outcome of this concern was Plan D denoting Democracy, Dialogue, and Debate. Six trans-national projects were conducted in order to test innovative consultation methods asking citizens to debate on the future of the EU; an innovative, pragmatic response to the concern of the democratic deficit, something that does what is says in the tin; asks citizens what they want.

Around 40,000 citizens representative of the EU as a whole were selected as participants for specific projects and hundreds of thousands participated in new online forums. After the selected participants had answered questions, consulted experts, learnt a wealth of new information on the EU, and taken time out of ‘their life at home’, they can only have felt involved and empowered by the EU. Now back at home, they were and are understandably keen to see what their contributions, time and efforts achieved. The new report on Plan D[1] (there is also a shorter, simpler version for citizens) says that participants were ‘anxious to receive feedback from decision-makers, in particular EU institutions and bodies’[2]. The EU responded by gathering participants from all six Plan D projects and providing them with an opportunity to synthesize their wishes, the outcome of which was an open letter that was submitted to the European institutions and published online for the world to see.[3]

The ‘letter’ was transmitted to anyone and everyone who was or could be interested. Political leaders at both the European and national levels had encouragement at the highest level to listen and make the most of this invaluable information that they now possessed. There was encouragement to address these recommendations in their programmes, discuss and engage citizens further on the matters, and keep up the good work by continuing to encourage active European citizenship. This is where things start to go pear shaped, after the innovation and leaps over mountains made so far, the EU falls short of making a few final, finishing steps.

Assumingly the result of this letter has been that some or many politicians have used this information and advice at varying degrees; it is regrettable that the word ‘assumingly’ is used to denote this. The only apparent achievement of the 40,000 participating citizens is hidden in the mist of politics at both national and European level.

‘When governments consult citizens, they create expectations, it is important to follow up these expectations otherwise citizens may be more reluctant to spend their precious time again’[4] 

Before conducting more innovative Plan D projects that engage and empower citizens, the EU should focus on creating a channel of feedback towards the citizens and creating a real dialogue. There is a convincing argument in saying that the feedback and effects of what these citizens have achieved for us all should be seen at our own local level, but that is theory and whilst this theory may hold true in the future, very little can be traced now. In the meantime perhaps EU officials and national governments should take some of their time out from their daily commitments, just as the participating citizens did, and compile a response to the open letter, answering the question of what their efforts have achieved. It would be a small token towards genuine dialogue. Indeed it may be difficult to trace what has actually been done in response to the open letter, re-arrange agendas and bring everyone together. However, the project has been difficult from the beginning, and the biggest hurdle has been overcome. If the EU wants to engage citizens in a two way dialogue, it must ensure a two way dialogue in a way that suits citizens as well as themselves. 

Author: Kirsty Wright 

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[1] Debate
Europe – building on the experience of Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate COM (2008) 158/4.[2] Ibid, 1 para 6.[3] The Future of
Europe – The Citizens’ Agenda.[4] OECD Handbook

After the heated debate and consultations on the European Transparency Initiative (ETI) we are now in the phase of consultations on its prominent element – the Code of Conduct for interest representatives (consultations close on 15/02/2008). The draft code proposed by the Commission seems fairly minimalist as it quotes very vast principles of “openness, transparency, honesty and integrity” that shall be binding for those (only!) who choose to register as lobbyists. There can be doubts whether it will bring more transparency to interest representation towards the EU Institutions.

The other provisions in the Commission’s draft mention that “citizens have the possibility to lodge a complaint about a suspected breech of the rules set out in the Code”. Interesting, but let’s think about practicalities: You need to be an extremely expert observer of the EU to detect and make a serious complaint about the breech of rules such as “openness and honesty” by the interest representatives.

Secondly, citizens should and can blow the whistle but then the institutional watch-dog, why not the European Ombudsman, should perform this role on a more substantial basis.

Finally, the proposed Code suspiciously lacks the hard measures such as disclosure of the financial background of lobbyists, rigorous monitoring and, if necessary, sanctions.

Coincidentally, at the same time that this consultation is going on, ECAS launches the “ECAS tips for would-be European lobbyists”. This guide (part of a bigger project) is intended to help NGOs to make their voice heard in Brussels and advocate their interests hence, ultimately, citizens’ interest. While we are very happy to present to our members and partners a solid guide on lobbying, we also discover that our guide is a tall order to follow…

Which civil society organisation will be able to afford several full-time policy officers to:
1. Be a skilful lobbyist
2. Adjust their strategy to what can be achieved realistically through the EU
3. Create a European association or network to operate in relation to the EU Institutions and across the Union
4. Participate in the consultative process
5. Support lobbying by evidence across the Union
6. Get in early and stay in
7. Make more use of EU complaints procedures to back-up your cause
8. Form alliances, build coalitions
9. Make a noise to be seen and heard
10. Find the resources to lobby effectively
11. Develop a game plan
12. Evaluate their lobbying activities?

Frankly, only the business associations and the biggest civil society platforms can allow it, which clearly puts the others in a disadvantaged position. This imbalance of influence was already highlighted in the Green Book on the European Transparency Initiative (p. 6). Apparently not much will be done/can be done on that.

ECAS guide concludes that “lobbying should not become a monopolising channel of influence towards the EU Institutions. It should always be weighed up against consultation processes, impact assessment, opinion polls, citizens’ views and complaints and other sources of evidence and research. Lobbyists are predatory and it is up to public authorities to keep them tamed.”

Will this fairly “relaxed” Code of Conduct presented by the Commission tame the lobbyists?

ECAS presented on 15 January the latest of the series of reports on the free movement.

See the report and the official press release.

Well before one can say that mobility becomes a piece of cake for EU-25, there comes 2007 enlargement and things get even worse. While the newcomers of 2004 can celebrate that more and more countries lift the transitional arrangements, Romania and Bulgaria get a bumpy ride. Both countries face serious restrictions on the free movement of their workers – even more countries than in 2004 have imposed transitional measures (i.e. in most cases the need of work permit). The picture is gloomy as Romanians already have had some experience of retention of passports in not so distant past, now it has been complemented by the recent expulsions in Italy.

The reason behind the restrictions was the fear of massive influx of (in 2004) Polish plumbers – curiously, nobody minds the nurses – and in 2007 their Bulgarian and Romanian comrades. The predictions of migration outflows were exaggerated for the 2004 enlargement. For the enlargement of 2007 even the predictions were modest and yet the general public feared the massive arrival of workers from these “newest” member sates. This is probably why on 1 January the British journalists spent the whole day in vain waiting for the Romanian and Bulgarian workers to spill out form the planes. Finally very little Bulgarians or Romanians left (or more precisely they left long time ago regardless of EU accession or transitional periods).

The predictions were wrong yet the transitional measures were imposed and they are set to stay. What are the results apart from making life more difficult for those who undertake the mobility? Well, it seems that they create so-called “second-class” European citizenship. The European citizenship may mean many things to many people but ask “an ordinary man in the street” (confirmed by Eurobarometer) and he will say it means free movement rights. Sadly then this principal message and meaning is not yet granted to the two newest member states.

The event organised by the European Commission to wrap up the plan D projects was finally not so formal and official an affair as might have been thought from the programme. This was due to Pat Cox as a quite brilliant moderator drawing out people’s comments and really pushing the very institutional panel to make commitments as to how they would follow-up the “shopping list” of demands coming from the citizens projects.He made it look easy but it in fact takes a lot of skill, which former MEPs should have, to be a bridge between the citizens and representatives of the Institutions.

It was also good to see that most of those who participated in the debate were individual citizens and not usual suspects.

Two things struck me and which could easily be corrected in the future: citizens in all these projects engage positively and tend to come out with requests to the EU to do more than it does, for example in the social field and to present agendas which would greatly increase EU resources and relevance to everyday life. This is a result of the process of participation but can easily be dismissed as in some way manipulated – which it was not. To avoid such interpretations, it would be better to organise such events in a less official setting than the Commission’s press room. After all far fewer press followed this last event than came to the European Citizens Consultations agenda setting event last October 2006 at the Heysel conference centre.

These projects must be and seen to be independent of the EU Institutions. Citizens care about their conclusions and want to see them followed up. Some are coming to every conceivable follow-up event and are questioning the Institutions about what happens next. They therefore did not like the way the results of their consultation or deliberative poll were mixed with others in a sort of consolidated list of the 6 projects.

Finally, something interesting happened at the last session. In the European Citizens’ Consultations – the Plan D project that we have been involved with – education was high on the agenda but not in the top three priority points. It was revealing that this subject – a difficult one for the EU where its competence is very limited -was picked up by the representatives of the Portuguese and Slovenian Presidencies as somehow the subject for the future on which European citizenship can be built.

How to explain that since 1979 and the first European elections the powers of the European Parliament have increased but voter participation has gone down to reach below 50% at the 2004 elections? 

ECAS believes that this does not reflect general disenchantment with the European construction – since the turnout in the European referenda was high. It rather reflects the weak communication policy of the EU in general.  Factual, non-political and timely information is a basic demand. In the case of the European elections, people need to be informed about how the European Parliament works and its main priorities. If people are not informed in the first place, is it hardly surprising that they are less motivated to vote let alone participate in the campaign.

20 months before next elections, citizens do not know much neither about communications campaign nor about the content of these campaigns.

Come to our next confenrece to find out from MEPs and civil society experts what is being prepared for June 2009:

“3C’s for European elections”

27 November 2007 (9h00 -17h30)

European Parliament, Eastman building

Beginning of a European public sphere? new exciting tool of communication? the platform to get the debate about Europe going?

We jump in!

In this blog we would like especially to discuss EU communication policy and the citizens’ participation methods.

If you want to see our previous work, please visit our website. We also invite you to the real world debate on 27 November:

more information about the conference

Looking forward to interesting virtual and real-life debates.