European Citizens' Initiative (ECI)

Ways to reach them

Find, sign or register an initiative · Petition system

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/

Verified · 2026-09-22

Public signing and organiser registration. Official Commission portal.

VERIFIED as live — the site was fetched and confirms the one-million-signature rule, though the landing page is a language selector and the procedural detail sits on deeper pages.

Organisers' register · Web form

https://register.eci.ec.europa.eu/organisers

Unverified

Where a citizens' committee registers a proposed initiative for Commission admissibility screening.

UNVERIFIED as fetched; referenced from the verified ECI find-initiative page.

Open AI-related initiatives · Web form

none identified

Unverified

n/a

UNVERIFIED — the initiative database could not be read (the listing pages returned navigation shells only). No AI-related open initiative was found, but absence could not be confirmed.

Submission page · Public consultation

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/how-it-works_en

Verified · 2026-09-22

Proposals for EU legal acts in areas where the Commission has power to propose legislation.

Form an organising group of at least 7 EU citizens resident in 7 different Member States, register the initiative, then collect at least 1 million signatures from EU citizens old enough to vote in European elections (16 in some countries), meeting minimum country thresholds in at least 7 Member States.

Homepage · Homepage

https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/

Unchecked

What it does

Treaty-based participatory instrument administered by the European Commission. Allows citizens to 'call on the European Commission to propose new laws'. On reaching one million valid signatures across a minimum number of Member States within the collection period, the Commission must meet the organisers, the Parliament holds a public hearing, and the Commission must respond formally setting out what action it will take and why. The Commission is NOT obliged to legislate.

Its powers

advise

Honest assessment

High cost, low probability, occasionally decisive. Fewer than a dozen ECIs have ever reached a million signatures in the instrument's lifetime, and the Commission has declined to legislate even on several that did. It requires a citizens' committee from seven Member States, a year of collection, national ID-number verification in many countries, and real money. It is not a route for an individual or a small group. Where it pays off is agenda-setting and the mandatory Parliament hearing, which produces a public record and press. For AI, no initiative has yet been mounted; the more efficient EU routes by an order of magnitude are a PETI petition, a Have your say consultation response, or direct rapporteur engagement.

Notes