ECI rules agreed. Now it’s time to address first ever citizens’ initiative on GMOs

Press release - December 15, 2010
Brussels, International — The European Parliament will today endorse a draft regulation on the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) following a three-way agreement reached between the European Commission, Parliament and Council on 6 December. The ECI is one of the main innovations of the Lisbon Treaty and is meant to allow citizens to request changes in European law.

Health commissioner John Dalli accepting the first ever ECI from Greenpeace and Avaaz last week.

Parliament's vote will confirm the legitimacy of the Avaaz and Greenpeace initiative, which was handed to the European Commission on 9 December. This first ECI calls for a ban on genetically modified crops until health and environment risk assessment is improved.

Under the rules to be agreed today, the Avaaz and Greenpeace initiative exceeds minimum requirements in major areas: over a million signatories, from all 27 member states, collected well within a year, and reaching country quotas in 12 countries (five more than the minimum). All signatures are verifiable.

Greenpeace EU director Jorgo Riss said: "The ECI rules make Europeans jump through flaming hoops. On an issue as sensitive as food safety, it should really be about what the European Commission is obliged to do once a million citizens have clearly expressed their concerns."

Avaaz Executive Director Ricken Patel said: "With the ECI regulations now agreed, the Commission has no excuse not to act on this urgent initiative. Our initiative shows that citizens are ready to make the ECI operational and address the democratic deficit in European policy. The question now is -- is the Commission?"

Avaaz and Greenpeace are deeply concerned that the ECI allows the collection of intrusive personal data in some member states that is unnecessary to verify a citizen's identity [1].

A legal opinion from professor Ludwig Kramer found that the terms of the Lisbon Treaty are sufficiently clear for the ECI to be directly applicable from the moment of ratification in December 2009. The opinion is available here. To view the initiative, click here.

Notes:

[1] The retention of the ID number requirement contradicts recommendations of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) which stated: "The EDPS takes the view that the mandatory information fields in the model form are all necessary for the purpose of organising the citizens initiative and securing the authenticity of the statements of support, except for the personal identification number. The EDPS therefore recommends deleting this information field from the model form in Annex III."
The retention of the ID number requirement in some, but not all, member states, even where not technically needed to verify identity, also violates paragraph four of the proposed regulation. This states that "citizens of the Union are subject to similar conditions for supporting a citizens' initiative regardless of the Member State from which they come".

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