(1)

On April 1st 2012 the European Union launched the ECI as the very first transnational instrument of modern direct democracy. Toute l’Europe organised a conference in Paris on the themes of communication, networking and fundraising with regard to the launch of ECI’s, on June 29th.

So far, very little attention had been given to these topics in the ECI legislation, literature and conferences. This event gathered representatives from European institutions, national and local governments as well as civil society and research institutes.

A number of initiators of onging ECI’s shared their first experience and best practices. GOV2U had the pleasure of facilitating a workshop on the concrete communication instruments for ECI’s. One the major outcomes of this workshop was the necessity for an ECI organizer to combine the paradoxical qualities of being able to convince technocratic European representatives and to present the citizen values close to his everyday concerns.

The organisers must take full advantage of online media, such as blogs, social networks, crowd sourcing tools or powerful video’s, but should not neglect traditional campaigns like street marketing, door to door and presence at mass events.

Finally, the currently unsolved technical barriers to the online collection statements of support was mentioned as a huge communication obstacle.

Although the ECI is one of the most expensive and burdensome participation tool, there was a general consensus that certain means can be deployed to really democratize this citizen tool in the European sphere.

Context

ECI Link is a common project involving five European partners that aims at deliberating on the different issues that have emerged around the implementation of the Citizens Initiatives’ from a legal, campaigning and technical viewpoint.

The project consists of hosting four conferences in Barcelona, Paris, Vienna and Brussels and lead to the design of an on-line training toolkit for the purposes of wider outreach.

To find out more, please see the New ECI Link Brochure

To read a press release from the conference  ECI Press Release 02 07 2012

The press release of the Paris Conference is now available on the website of Toute l´Europe.

Watch the Pictures and video of the Barcelona Conference hosted in May.   

 

Citizens | Conference | European Citizen Initiative | Gov2u Project | Paris

manuela

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Report comment