European citizens would for the first time be able to directly suggest new legislation through the European Citizens' Initiative, proposed in detail today by the European Commission

Introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, the Citizens' Initiative enables one million citizens who are nationals of a significant number of Member States to directly request that the Commission brings forward an initiative of interest to them in an area of EU competence.

EU citizens can already petition the parliament and vote in parliamentary elections. But there was as yet no formal procedure for direct participation in policymaking by the EU executive branch – the European commission.

The treaty gives citizens the opportunity to ask the commission to bring forward proposals for action in areas where the EU has powers. 

In November 2009 the European Commission published a Green Paper and launched a wide public consultation to help to define the practical details of the Citizens' Initiative. The Green Paper identified practical questions regarding how the Initiative can best work in practice. Questions such as the number of countries from which people must come, how to check that signatures are real, what form a petition should take, time limits etc.

Finally, an initiative must be backed by at least one million citizens from at least one third of the Member States. In each of these Member States, the minimum number of signatures required would be calculated by multiplying the number of Members of the European Parliament from that country by a factor of 750. The minimum age for signatories would be the age at which people are entitled to vote in the European Parliament elections.

The proposal sets a time limit of one year to collect signatures and gives the Commission four months to examine an initiative and decide how to act on it. The Commission hopes that the Council and Parliament will reach final agreement on the ECI before the end of this year, to allow the first initiatives to be brought forward in 2011.