A Small-States Perspective on the European Citizens’ Initiative

Maximilian Conrad

doi:10.13177/irpa.a.2013.9.2.3

Abstract

The introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) in the Lisbon Treaty has given the European Union (EU) its strongest element of transnational participatory democracy to date. One million EU citizens from at least seven different member states can now request legislative proposals from the European Commission. This article discusses the ECI from a small-states perspective, assessing its impact on the role of small-state citizens in the union. The theoretical argument draws both on the international relations literature on small states and on James Bohman’s work on transnational democracy, suggesting that the ECI is a particularly fruitful tool that gives EU citizens an institutional incentive for initiating deliberation on perceived injustices. The empirical argument presents the findings of a quantitative analysis of the organizers of the first sixteen initiatives, suggesting that the ECI is indeed a tool used by citizens from the union’s smaller states. However, the analysis also shows that state size can and should be conceptualized not merely in terms of traditional indicators such as most importantly population size, but also in terms of constructivist notions of perceptual size.

Highlights

1.1 Background The Lisbon Treaty introduced the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) as the world’s first transnational citizens’ agenda initiative, thereby providing EU citizens with the strongest instrument of participatory democracy in the European Union to date.1 Since the ECI became legislative reality in April 2012, EU citizens have been able to draft ideas for legislative proposals and gather signatures in their support
Provided that certain formal requirements are met, initiatives supported by the signatures of at least one million EU citizens can force the European Commission to submit a legislative proposal to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers
The potential of the ECI has not been explored from a smallstates perspective, investigating how it could affect the role of small states and their citizens in the EU’s legislative process

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Background The Lisbon Treaty introduced the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) as the world’s first transnational citizens’ agenda initiative, thereby providing EU citizens with the strongest instrument of participatory democracy in the European Union to date. Since the ECI became legislative reality in April 2012, EU citizens have been able to draft ideas for legislative proposals and gather signatures in their support. The ECI strengthens the role of European citizens as such, not of states or their governments, as has already been pointed out in response to a similar question asked on Evrópuvefurinn (Conrad 2012), the Icelandic Parliament’s and the University of Iceland’s joint information website on the European Union In this sense, the ECI’s potential contribution to alleviating the democratic deficit lies primarily in offering institutional incentives for the activation of the transnational dimension of EU citizenship. A Small-States Perspective on the European Citizens’ Initiative Maximilian Conrad This suggests that the ECI can serve as an institutional tool allowing citizens from the union’s small(er) states to make their voices heard in the EU’s legislative process, provided that they manage to identify likeminded co-organizers in other member states.

Organizational Aspects I

Organizational Aspects II

Who organizes ECIs – and why?

Findings

Conclusions