The Constitutional Affairs Committee meeting in Brussels on 5 October, debated on how cutting red tape and make easier for citizens to table their initiatives seeking EU legislation. Introducing an early stage admissibility test based as well as certain and clear criteria were key points of the debate.

Parliament's co-rapporteur Zita Gurmai raised several suggestions made by the four rapporteurs working on the citizens' initiative plans, which would enable groups of at least one million EU citizens from several Member States to ask the European Commission to table legislative proposals. Ms Gurmai suggested that an admissibility test of proposals made at a very early stage would be beneficial and stressed that getting one million signatures supporting a citizen's proposals deserves something in exchange, at least the right to be heard.

Two experts were invited to the hearing, Professor Jürgen Meyer and former MEP Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, who both were contrary to Commission's proposal to make it mandatory for all signatories of an initiative to supply their ID card numbers. Although this seems to be general sentiment another co-rapporteur noted that at least a uniform system for verifying identity should be in place.

The Commission proposals puts forward an admissibility check that would be made only after collecting 300.000 signatures. Further to Parliament's proposal for an early stage admissibility test based in other criteria, the Commission admitted to be considering such option. Admissibility criteria were also a matter of debate within the Committee between MEPs and Commission.

Both the invited experts supported extending the time allowed for collecting signatures from 12 to 18 months. Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann also argued that the minimum age for signatories should be 16 throughout Europe, not just in Austria, where this is also the voting age for European elections.

MEPs supported the idea that involving citizens in EU politics should be made under certain but feasible rules, threshold for involving citizens in politics shoudl be kept as low as possible.