The Citizens’ Initiative - One of the reasons I’m voting Yes!

There are a large number of reasons I will be voting Yes in the forthcoming referendum. Some are to do with Ireland’s European experience to date, which because the changes are largely technical in nature, is a valid reason to vote yes. To a large extent, Lisbon serves as primarily as a lubricant for the European Union, allowing our Union to function more efficiently into the future.

There are also some important innovations in the Treaty which are worthy of our support as well, such as the linking of the Presidency of the Commission with the European parliaments election, the strengthening of the role of the national parliaments and the Citizens’ Initiative. That is not to say that the Lisbon Treaty is perfect, unfortunately, human nature is such that an document approved by representatives of 27 different national governments will contain compromises of various shapes and makes. Like any human document, it should not be compared against some form of idealised system, but rather what else was possible. To date, I am unaware of any organisation in this campaign highlighting a realistic alternative to Lisbon, bar a reversion to the status quo.

Over the coming weeks, I hope to set forward the various reasons I am voting yes. First off, the one that I am most enthused about is the Citizen’s Initiative. This is covered by Article 11.4 of the amended Treaty of the European Union, the text of which is:

“Not less than one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States may take the initiative of inviting the European Commission, within the framework of its powers, to submit any appropriate proposal on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.”

A relatively simple proposition, but one which offers much potential. A mere decade ago, such a system would have been largely unworkable. The logistics of collecting a million signatories from a significant number of countries (the exact mechanics is to be decided by secondary legislation) in paper format would provide hugely difficult, however the advent of the popular internet use places it within the grasp of a well-organised campaign with a good proposition.

Naturally, the extent of the requirement is that the Commission will merely have to consider the proposal. However, it will allow groups outside the political main stream to put political ideas on the agenda of the Commission which may not have previously arisen. Last week, we had the example of Michael Martin claiming that he could not commence legislation outlawing credit card surcharges because it might be against existing EU legislation in this area. This may well be a cop-out by Martin – the usual trick of blaming Brussels for not making a decision – but if it is the case, this would be an ideal issue for European consumer organisations to join together and seek to have new legislation brought in on this matter.

Another example of where this may prove useful is an existing petition called the 112 petition:

“In the EU, 15 to 30 % of the emergency calls get an inappropriate or even no answer at all!

The European Commission’s own figures show that every year 5,000 more lives as well as EUR 5,000,000,000 could be saved.

Therefore, I request the European Commission to ensure an efficient 112 service all over the EU to my family and me for the 50th anniversary of the United Europe in 2007.”

This is the example of an issue which is unlikely to gain much resonance in any particular state, but may well gain a popular resonance across Europe. There are a host of other issues which are not currently on the Commission’s agenda – particular those of groups who are traditionally not at the centre of national or European level power - but could be put there for consideration by the Citizen’s Initiative.

Young Fine Gael have proposed in their submission to the National Forum on Europe, using the Citizens’ Initiative in a particular innovative way – using it to push for further reforms of the European Union. In this case, they have committed to using the imitative to campaign for a directly elected president of the European Commission. This would be pushing the bounds of the Initiative, put that is what those committed to further democratising the Union need to do. Whilst not perfect, it is valuable step forward, one which should be welcomed, and this is one of the reasons why I will be voting Yes, come June 12th.