New Rules, New Players? The ECI as a Source of Competition and Contention in the European Public Sphere

Abstract

This article analyses the potential effect of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) on the field of relations between European institutions and civil society organisations (CSOs). The article builds on empirical analysis of data coming from almost a decade of debate about participatory democracy in the EU, and in particular, evidence from the consultation on the Green Paper about the ECI (European Commission, 2009) and 21 signature-collection campaigns that have been launched so far (Fischer & Lichtbau, 2008; Kaufmann, 2010) in order to foresee the attitudes of these organisations towards the initiative. Analysis of the campaigns launched so far suggests the existence of four categories of promoters. The first two are easily expected, that is, EU organisations working closely with members to launch campaigns and large organisations promoting campaigns on visible topics. Additionally, it seems that the ECI may be used in connection to organisations' commercial interests and that political actors (MPs, MEPs and regional and local authorities) may be important drivers. The article finds no evidence of a significant bias of ECIs towards social movements and national organisations but rather towards EU groups able to play the institutional and the protest game. It finds evidence as well that the promoters of ECIs are evenly divided between organisations wanting to protest against the course of European integration and those wanting to influence its course.