Citizens' initiative

The Commission presents a staff working document on the outcome of the public consultation on the Green Paper on a European Citizens' Initiative which accompanies the proposal for a Regulation on the citizens’ initiative. The consultation elicited 329 replies from a broad range of stakeholders, including 160 individual citizens, 133 organisations and 36 public authorities. Many interesting and innovative ideas and suggestions were put forward by stakeholders.

The responses broadly underlined the need for the procedures and conditions for the citizens' initiative to be simple, user-friendly and accessible to all EU citizens and that they should be proportionate to the nature of the citizens' initiative. The responses also confirmed that a number of requirements are needed in order to ensure that the instrument remains credible and is not abused and that these requirements should ensure uniform conditions for supporting a citizens' initiative across the EU.