"The European Citizens" Initiative: a Step forward or Not in Reducing the Democratic Deficit in the EU

Abstract

The author of the article claims that although the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an important instrument of participatory democracy in the European Union still there is a need of a new solutions for reducing the democratic deficit in the European Union. In order to proof this thesis the author in the first part of the article tries to give explanation for the democratic deficit issue in the EU. According to Hix , the current standard version of the democratic deficit in the European Union involves five main claims and the first one is that the European Parliament is too weak and only the European Commission has the right for legislative initiative in the Union. The need for establishing balance in this field brought the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) that was introduced with the Lisbon Treaty. It means that one million EU citizens residing in at least one quarter of the Member States can invite the Commission to submit a proposal for a legal act to implement the EU Treaties. The second part of the paper is devoted to the European Citizens` Initiative: the genesis, evolution and the current situation. The concept of EU citizenship, from which the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) was derived, was first introduced in the Maastricht Treaty. There are theorists that negate the role that ECI has in establishing the democracy in the EU claiming that there are obstacles in this process such as the representation of the citizens only from the bigger Member states. That is why the author concludes that there is a need for bigger changes that should take place at the next Intergovernmental Conference where the competencies of the EU institutions will be discussed. One of the recommendations is giving the right for legislative initiative for the Members of the European Parliament in order to reduce the democratic deficit in the EU.