Get Prepared For The European Citizen Initiative on 1 April 2012
The final countdown towards the launch of the first transnational European Citizen Initiative (ECI) has started.
This campaign intends to be an instrument to ask for an enhanced citizen-friendly participatory democracy in the European Union. The events will cover a wide range of topics, such as environment (implementation of a landscape convention, renewable energy and against atomic energy, water rights and against the privatisation of public water systems), education (creation of a European education trust and rendering the EU exchange programmes more attractive), social issues (eliminating homelessness in the EU), and many others.
Citizens, media and institutions are getting prepared for the initiative, organising events and gathering supporters. In the meanwhile, EU member states are implementing juridical and practical agreements for implementing the ECI at the national level, and the European institutions are preparing themselves to receive and hear campaigners.
To get everything ready for this event, the EU Commission organised on 26 January a warm-up conference to discuss institutional and technical aspects. As a result of the meeting a new website and register has been set up for the ECI, where you can find the Commission's official ECI guide and useful information to organise your own ECI. Also the main social media, such as facebook, twitter and google will play a key-role by making their services available to the ECI event. The second preparatory meeting, on 20 March, is organised by ECAS and Democracy International and will focus on practical needs of the ECI organisers.
To join and follow the events see those website:
http://www.citizens-initiative.eu/
http://www.ecas-citizens.eu/content/view/437/1/
Francesca Ghersenti (CSF). 30 January 2012.