12 Amendments of Jiří MAŠTÁLKA related to 2014/2257(INI)
Amendment 3 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Regrets however that the law on ECI is unknown, unused and ineffective and therefore powerless, since very few people know of its existence, obstacles are really high and the EU is not even obliged to act, the law has not met expectations of the European citizens, therefore it contributes to a growing frustration of the EU citizens from the functioning of the EU;
Amendment 10 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Notes that more than six million EU citizens have participated in a Citizens' Initiative and that three initiatives, namely ‘Right2Water', ‘One of Us' and ‘Stop Vivisection', were successful; points, however, to the various practical difficulties which the organisers have encountered since the entry into force of the regulation in April 2012, and the fact that the number of initiatives is still declining;
Amendment 12 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the Commission to use all public communication channels to raise awareness of the ECI and facilitate communication of running ECIs, for example by creating a mobile app with information, notifications and possibility of mobile signing;
Amendment 21 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Calls on the Commission, furthermore, to revise the list of its competences on its internet portal and make it more comprehensible and user-friendly, given that the registration of a large number of submitted citizens' initiatives was rejected on the grounds that they manifestly fell outside the framework of the Commission's competence; stresses that in the case of rejection the Commission must explain its political choices to the public in a detailed and transparent manner, so that the reasoning is more robust, consistent and comprehensible to the citizen and at the same time inform the organisers of the relevant legal considerations, so that they can decide whether to revise their ECI and resubmit it in a modified form;
Amendment 26 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Stresses the need for a harmonised procedure for submitting statements of support, as it is unacceptable that EU citizens should be excluded from supporting Citizens' Initiatives owing to differing personal data submission requirements in the Member States; calls therefore on the Commission to propose simpler and uniform data requirements across all member states to facilitate EU citizens wishing to sign an ECI, irrespective of their country of residence, for example by creating a single web site and a mobile app; calls on the Member States, as a matter of urgency, to remove the requirement that a personal identification number be provided for a statement of support, as this represents an unnecessary bureaucratic burden for the collection of statements of support and also an unnecessary way of checking the identity of a signatory;
Amendment 27 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6a. Calls on the Commission to redesign the Online Collestion Software and statement of support forms to enable signatories to share their email address with ECI organisers on non-mandatory basis, bearing in mind also the needs of persons with disabilities who wish to submit statements of support of ECIs online;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Underlines its position that the automatic link between the registration of a Citizens' Initiative and the starting date of the twelve-month period for the collection of statements of support should be removed, so that and the ECI organisers of Citizens' Initiatishould haves are encouraged to decide themselves when to initiate the collection of chance to make a choice in the date for the launch of their ECI, within three months of its registratements of support.ion by the Commission;
Amendment 33 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes that liability issues have arisen for the organisers of Citizens' Initiatives owing to the fact that citizens' committees lack legal personality and that this problem could only be solved by revising the regulation by the creation of a European legal status for the citizens' committee;
Amendment 39 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. WelcomesCalls on the Commission to come up with ideas on the two important aspects of translation and funding of ECIs, welcomes in this context the European Economic and Social Committee's willingness to provide free translation services for initiators, thereby facilitating the dissemination of Citizens' Initiatives in all official languages; recognises therein a significant contribution to supporting citizens by enabling them to promote their concerns among the EU population;
Amendment 47 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Calls on the Commission to submit a proposal for the revision of the Regulation on the Citizen's Initiative as soon as possible, to make the Citizen's Initiative easier to use and more citizen-friendly and enable it to fully unfold its potential.; is of the opinion that the Commission should not have the veto right, because of the potential conflict of interest, but its legal assessment should be advisory in nature. The revision of the ECI should also remove Art. 4(2)(b), which restrictively limits the admissibility of ECIs;
Amendment 49 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11b. Calls on the Commission to revise the wording of Article 10 (c) of regulation 211/2011 to allow proper follow-up to a successful ECI, urges the Commission to start preparing a legal act on successful ECIs within 12 months of their submission, in case the Commission fails to do so, the competent committee of the European Parliament will initiate an initiative report after having consulted the ECI organisers and the report should be debated in full plenary followed by vote;
Amendment 50 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. Calls on the Commission to come up with a proposal on what to do with ECIs which were not successful, but reached interest of large number of citizens, stresses that the running ECI should serve as a political platform and facilitate public debate on this issue, suggests therefore that a first public hearing in the European Parliament should be held if an ECI reaches 200 000 signatures within the first six months;