Comments on: European Commission, obsoleted by the lightening pace at which the Internet changes expectations

By: A roadmap in the making: the EESC and the Citizen’s Initative | The Albion Alliance presents

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:01:21 +0000

[...] Claimed to have too many constraints and safeguards, with no proper time frames and completely unworkable, this proposal saw itself being finalised last December after talks between the Parliament, Council [...]

By: Mathew Lowry’s Tagsmanian Devil » Blog Archive » When the tables turn - PR firms and the ECI

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:19:16 +0000

[...] I toured the reactions to the Commission’s ECI proposal, particularly when I saw, on Jon’s post, this quote: “This initiative should give power to the people, not to lobbyists and [...]

By: JEF Europe

JEF Europe — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:10:45 +0000

Hi Jon,

Thx for also taking up the restrictive draft ECI Regulation on your blog.

JEF Europe prepared a 1-page Open Letter with different alternative proposals. It was uploaded on http://www.citizensinitiative.eu. Please feel warmly invited to spread the news in the blogosphere and forward the link via Facebook, Twitter or mail to any political representatives you are in touch with as this could trigger a lobby campaign that could hopefully incluence the decision-making…

By: bloggingportal.eu Blog & Support » Blog Archive » The Week in Bloggingportal: (Mis)Understanding Europe Multilingually

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 11:53:05 +0000

[...] At the beginning of the week, Jon and eurosocialiste (both Bloggingportal.eu editors) slammed the European Commission’s [...]

By: Taco

Taco — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:44:33 +0000

We should have a petition about the citizen’s initiative to take away all the crap and make it really relevant to EU Democracy ourselves!

By: Η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση, ένας θεσμός βαθιά αντιδημοκρατικός « Η Χελώνα

Η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση, ένας θεσμός βαθιά αντιδημοκρατικός « Η Χελώνα — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:48:25 +0000

[...] proposes rules on new democratic instrument European Commission, obsoleted by the lightening pace at which the Internet changes expectations Why the Commission’s proposal is nipping the citizen’s initiative in the [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:23:22 +0000

@jz – thanks for the comment!

Yes, I agree that would be a danger, and having a binding citizens’ intiative is dangerous. But how many checks do you need? As it is currently you have a mass of checks to even get a petition selected, and then the Commission can decide not to act. That makes the whole thing toothless in my opinion. I would far prefer simpler, easier rules for an initiative and then the Commission would maintain the right to not initiate legislation.

By: jz

jz — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:20:07 +0000

Hey Jon,

I totally share your analysis and you frustration. Although, to play a bit of the devil’s advocate here, I have no argument against the following: if the citizen initiative was binding for the Commission, what if 1M signature was collected in order to re-establish death penalty, or ban minarets?

You know like me that such populist measures could easily get 1M signatures… after all on a few hundred millions population, 1M is not that much…