Source: 26-01-2009 http://www.headstar.com/egblive/?p=190 from E-Government Bulletin Live
A
multiple level electronic petitions service to increase citizen participation
in European democracy is to be launched by the European Commission and
Parliament next week.
EuroPetition
( http://www.europetition.eu/ is a 24-month project piloting
petitions at local community and European levels.
The local aspect will build on and develop an open-source ePetitions service
already in operation in Bristol, UK (http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk) and Malmo, Sweden (http://www.epet-malmo.public-i.tv:80).
Citizens will be able to initiate petitions
for submission to their local councils and debate issues under consideration.
At the
international level, EuroPetition will co-ordinate the creation and submission
to the European Parliament of five online petitions from regions in five member
states, including the UK. These petitions could engage up to around five
million citizens, and will be on EU legislative issues to be decided.
Discussion materials and the petitions themselves will be translated into local
languages, and ‘web 2.0’ tools such as Facebook applications will be developed
to help people promote online petition activity.
The
project’s managers hope it will enable citizens to have a direct effect on
European legislation. According to the website, “users of the service have a
direct route to influence decision makers.”
Not unuseful arrangement but it is not in fact what people in the EU need most. Citizens of the EU will not have a direct effect on European legislation until the only legislator of the Union would not be the Parliament of the Union and until it will be the Council, in other words not until the present intergovernmental (on international treaties based) association of states will be changed in a federation with direct influence of its citizens on federal institutions through the elections. What any petitions will help to them if the real power-holder in the EU are the national governments, not elected by people, even not at all for the purpose of governing the EU?
Posted by: Citizen of Europe | February 01, 2009 at 02:32 PM