The European Citizens’ Initiative: Participatory Democracy for All?

An empirical analysis of citizen engagement with the ECI

Student: Raluca Dragan Student ID: i6014695 Study Programme: M. Sc. Public Policy and Human Development Student Cohort: September 2014 Supervisor: Dr. Tatiana Skripka Second reader: Julieta Marotta Date of submission: 04.11.2015

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Abstract The ECI was introduced to provide EU citizens with the opportunity to both advance and support policy proposal to the EC. In light of the recent debate on the weaknesses of the ECI as a tool of participatory democracy, this thesis investigates potential effects on citizen engagement with the instrument, expressed as the percentage of signatures obtained by campaigns from the minimum required threshold. The explanatory variables selected to conduct the analysis are the signing citizens’ norm of participation and the organising citizens’ capacities. Because the two studied effects occur on separate levels of citizen engagement, i.e. signing citizens and organising citizens respectively, it was necessary to develop two hypotheses which reflect that. Therefore, the first hypothesis addresses the possibility that the citizens’ participatory discipline, proxied by their engagement with national tools of deliberative democracy, influences the extent to which they sign initiatives. The second hypothesis raised is that the ECI organisers’ resources, reflected by their organisational capacity, determine the amount of signatures initiatives collect. However, preliminary research has also indicated that the overburdening policy regulations and procedures enable only citizens who have access to vast resources to conduct an effective campaign. Hence, the effect of organisational capacity on citizen engagement is instrumented by policy design. The results of the analysis, which takes into consideration twelve cases, are that norm of participation exerts a negative effect on citizen engagement with the ECI, which means that initiatives are signed more frequently by citizens from countries where levels of participation are lower. One reason that could explain this effect is that the ECI provides a more valuable participatory opportunity to citizens who do not benefit from effective deliberative processes at the national level. On the other hand, the effect observed for organisational capacity is positive, clearly indicating that an ECI campaign has higher chances of success if organised by citizens who possess substantial relevant knowledge, skills and resources and who are supported by stakeholder networks. In view of these findings, the paper concludes with several short-term and long-term recommendations to make the ECI a more accessible and inclusive bottom-up agenda-setting instrument.

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Table of Contents Acronyms ..................................................................................................................... 1 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 2 1.1 The broader debate .............................................................................................. 2 1.2 The European Citizens’ Initiative ........................................................................ 2 1.3 The structure of the paper .................................................................................... 3 2. Research question .............................................................................................. 4 3. Literature review ................................................................................................ 5 3.1 Norm of participation ............................................................................................... 5 3.2 Policy design ............................................................................................................. 7 3.3 Organisational capacity ............................................................................................ 8 4. Theoretical framework ..................................................................................... 9 4.1 Hypotheses .............................................................................................................. 10 4.2 The dependent variable .......................................................................................... 10 4.3 The independent variables ..................................................................................... 12

4.3.1 Choice of independent variables ................................................................... 12 4.3.2 Norm of participation ................................................................................... 16 4.3.3 The accessibility of the ECI: policy design ................................................... 18 4.3.4 Organisational capacity ................................................................................ 21 4.3.5 Visual representation and possible scenarios of the variables’ relationship……………………………………………………………………………………………….28

5. Methodology ....................................................................................................... 29 6. Findings and Analysis ...................................................................................... 32 6.1. Norm of participation ............................................................................................ 32 6.2. Organisational capacity ......................................................................................... 33

6.2.1. Description of empirical data ...................................................................... 33 6.2.2. The results of the analysis ........................................................................... 50

6.3. Discussion of findings ........................................................................................... 52 7. Conclusions and Recommendations ........................................................... 54 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 59 Appendices ................................................................................................................ 71 Appendix A ................................................................................................................... 71

Appendix A.1: What citizens do to influence political decision-making .............. 71 Appendix A.2: Percentage of signatures from the minimum threshold obtained by campaigns per country...................................................................................... 72

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Appendix A.3: Percentage of signatures from the minimum threshold obtained by countries on average across all 12 campaigns. ................................................. 84 Appendix A.4: Percentage of signatures from the minimum threshold obtained by campaigns from all countries ........................................................................... 85

Appendix B: Transcripts of interviews conducted by the author ................................ 86 Appendix B.1: Interview with Elisa Bruno ............................................................ 86 Appendix B.2: Interview with Lucy Hatton .......................................................... 91

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Acronyms CSO: Civil society organisation EC: European Commission ECAS: European Citizen Action Service ECE: Central and Eastern Europe ECI: European Citizens’ Initiative EP: European Parliament EPSU: European Federation of Public Service Union EU: European Union MEP: Member of European Parliament OCS: Online Collection Software/System

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1. Introduction

1.1 The broader debate The European Union (EU) is generally perceived as being too distant from its citizens. This is due to its complex institutional structures, lack of transparency and public information – two critical catalysers of citizen affiliation and involvement - as well as insurmountable bureaucracy (Hatton, 2011). Overcoming the gap between EU’s representative elite and citizens at large – also dubbed as the democratic deficit - has been one of EU’s main struggles since its creation and has generated numerous reforms in an effort to mitigate it (Davies, 2011). In the last decade, the debate on participatory democracy as the alternative to a feeble system of representative democracy has exposed the need for participatory tools that would involve citizens more actively in the political process, in order to legitimize decision-making and to generate more socially-desirable policy outputs (Boussaguet, 2015). In light of these arguments, the present thesis assesses the effectiveness of one of these tools – the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) – as determined by two potential effects on citizen engagement with it, namely the participatory culture of signing citizens (norm of participation) and the capacities of organising citizens - instrumented by policy design. This is a pertinent analysis since evaluations from numerous different stakeholders deemed the ECI as an ineffective policy instrument, as explained later in the thesis. It is the view of the present author that, in order to address the issues that make the ECI ineffective, it is important to first uncover what causes the level of citizen engagement with it.

1.2 The European Citizens’ Initiative To enable the reader to fully comprehend the analysis, it is necessary to first offer a description of the ECI and its scope, as well as the relevant policy requirements. The ECI was the outcome of increasing interest in participatory democracy and it was introduced with the purpose of guaranteeing a more direct citizen involvement in the EU policy process. The ECI allows all EU citizens to propose legislation of transnational concern to the European Commission (EC) and has entered into force in

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April 2012 (Conrad, 2011). It is a right enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon and implemented by Regulation (EU) No 211/2011 (hereinafter ‘the Regulation’) and its delegated acts (Regulation (EU) No 211/2011, 2011). In order for an ECI to be launched, its subject matter must fall under EU competences and it must be organised by a citizens’ committee, which has to consist of at least seven EU citizens of nationalities from seven different Member States. ECIs cannot be conducted by organisations, but they can be supported and promoted by them, provided there is full transparency in doing so. The ECI proposal must first be registered with the EC, which is achieved upon meeting several admissibility criteria. After this step is completed, the citizens’ committee must collect, within twelve months, a total of 1 million signatures, with a minimum threshold of signatures obtained from at least seven Member States. All EU citizens with a right to vote for European Parliament (EP) elections1 have a right to organise and sign ECIs (European Commission, 2015).

1.3 The structure of the paper This section provides an overview of how the paper is organised. The following chapter explains what motivated posing the research question of the study and which issues it addresses. The third section – ‘Literature Review’ – outlines the theories and concerns previously raised by the academic community, civil society and EU representatives in regard to the functionality of the ECI. The theoretical framework articulates the hypotheses tested in order to answer the research question, explains the choice of independent variables, defines the dependent and independent variables and establishes benchmarks for the assessment of the studied effects. In ‘Methodology’, the reasoning behind selecting the research methods, the type of data and the cases used to conduct the research is explained. This section is followed by the substantial analysis of the cases in order to empirically test whether the selected independent variables explain citizen engagement in EU’s legislative process. In view of the findings revealed by the case study analysis and the subsequent conclusions, recommendations to make the ECI a more inclusive instrument are formulated.

1 16 years old in Austria, 18 years old in the rest of the Member States

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2. Research question Some scholars of European participatory democracy consider the ECI a tool with great potential of decreasing EU’s democratic deficit by allowing citizens outside elitist communities to act on their political interests, but also by initiating a public debate, in the context of a certain proposal, on EU’s competences (Trzaskowski, 2010). Despite this potential, however, the academic community, civil society and even Members of European Parliament (MEPs) largely agree that the ECI, in its current form, does not enable enough participation to ensure a true representation of citizens’ interests. (The ECI Campaign, 2014). There is also a possibility that the ECI has quite the opposite effect than the one envisioned by the Treaty of Lisbon and, in fact, discourages citizen participation. The instrument could cause major frustrations among citizens and further determine them not to trust the EU because the EC, being responsible of maintaining legal order, can reject initiatives which fall out of EU competences, regardless of their popularity and legitimate cause (Trzaskowski, 2010). The fact that the public debate on the ECI has intensified in 2015, with the ECI Day and the revision by the EC sparking discussion among a wide variety of stakeholders – ECI organisers, civil society activists, EU institutions, individual citizens and EU leaders – underlines the relevance of the present research. EC Vice-president Frans Timmermans also participated in the ECI Day debate and stressed the fact that the current situation is not satisfactory and that the relationship between EU institutions and citizens is decisive for the future of the EU (ECAS, 2015). It is in this context that the research question of this study emerged: “What are the factors that influence citizen engagement with the ECI?” With regard to the critique presented in the previous paragraph, the author believes that understanding the factors that determine how inclusive participation, as prescribed by the ECI in its current form, truly is, holds the answer to whether this instrument can deliver on its promise of participatory democracy for all citizens. Therefore, the paper looks at factors that influence citizen engagement directly (organisational capacities and norm of participation) and indirectly (policy design).

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3. Literature review The preliminary research conducted for the purpose of this study uncovered thematic patterns referring to potential determinants of citizen engagement with the ECI. First of all, the identification of such explaining factors required delving into scholarly literature on participatory democracy in general. This endeavour revealed that there are two major schools of thought on the factors influencing citizens’ engagement in the policy-process. Although competing – having identified different causes of citizens’ engagement in policy-making2 – they both prove instrumental in explaining citizens’ engagement with the ECI. They can be distinguished as the cultural approach, which postulates that the participatory culture of citizens influences their level of engagement, and the materialistic approach, which posits that the citizens’ resources determine whether they participate. While these prior theories on citizen engagement informed the choice of independent variables, civil, scholarly and institutional polemics on the functionality of the ECI helped determine that the policy design of the instrument influences citizen engagement indirectly through the second independent variable. Although the studied literature seems to regard these considerations as opposing theories, they are treated as parallel and non-exclusive under the purview of this thesis. This perspective is justified by the fact that the paper employs two levels of analysis, reflecting separate effects on the amount of signatures collected by campaigns: bottom-up for norm of participation and top-down for organisational capacities as determined by policy design.

3.1 Norm of participation The literature reading revealed, on one hand, normative positions which ascertain that citizens’ engagement with any form of participatory democracy largely depends on their willingness to be directly involved in the policy process. The absence of such willingness might indicate a deeper democratic crisis than envisioned before the policy 2 The definition used for policy-making in this thesis is a broad one and does not only refer to decision-making. It encapsulates the interaction of multiple stakeholders in making initiatives, building opinions, practicing advocacy, taking positions and holding consultations (Geurts, 2011).

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implementation (Troedsson, 2012). Since participatory governance is built on values of participation, deliberation and empowerment, democratic culture plays a key role in determining people’s commitment to getting actively involved in the political process (Pietrzyk-Reeves, 2008). These considerations pertain to the cultural approach, which refers to ‘socialisation for participation’ as the key element that incentivises political participation. Scholars of this theory argue that civil society organisations (CSOs) “teach citizens values of trust, moderation, compromise and reciprocity and the skill of democratic discussion and organisation.” (Newton, 2001) Such ethics of participation constitute the foundation of participatory communities (Putnam, 2002), but they are absent from European transitional countries because former Communist regimes heavily fostered a culture of mistrust in fellow citizens and state institutions (Letki, 2003). This argument is reinforced by Marc Morjé Howard, one of the most preeminent authors on this topic, who claims that Central and Eastern Europe (ECE) countries display patterns of weaker civil societies and civic participation in politics than old democracies and post-authoritarian regimes in Western and Southern Europe. He attributes the cause of this behaviour to the specificity of the communist heritage in this region, which he believes is determined by three lingering traits from the socialist era: the compulsory membership in state-owned organisations, the persistence of private networks of family and friends, and the overall mistrust and disappointment with the political system in the transition period (Howard, 2003). Another study on the emerging European polity and participatory activism proves that, although interest in politics in ECE is not lower than in Western democracies, it does not correlate with participation. This is caused by the exacerbation of pre-democratic social conditions in the transition period, which has been marked by demobilisation and a disintegrated civil society due to rising “political apathy of citizens, radical individualism, social anomie, amoral cynicism, paternalism and mass distrust in post-communist regimes.” (Petrova & Tarrow, 2007) Narrowing the debate to the ECI, Assistant Professor Kristof Jacobs of the Radbound University Nijmegen affirmed before the implementation of the instrument that the instrument might be captured by individuals who already participate intensely in the policy process (Jacobs, 2012). The Eurobarometer, which provides the indicators used as proxies for norm of participation in this study, shows that higher norms of

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participation are correlated with older democracies (TNS Political & Social, 2013). The fact that norm of participation shapes the level of citizen involvement with national tools of participative democracy motivated the present inquiry of whether this effect occurs in the context of the ECI as well. Thus, the present thesis also tests Jacob’s assumption.

3.2 Policy design Apart from normative assertions, most of the literature on citizen engagement with the ECI is, in fact, comprised of arguments referring to the structural nature of the instrument as a determinant of citizen engagement. The target of the ECI is to promote a governance model based on participatory democracy that empowers large numbers of citizens to engage with EU’s legislative process. Paradoxically, before and in the early stages of implementation, scholars argued that the ECI seems to intrinsically be accessible only by members of CSOs and best utilised by them because, unlike the general public, they are the actors vested in influencing the policy process (Garcia, 2012). Another argument was that the instrument’s exclusive appeal to enlightened or elitist communities stems from the fact that the policy design is too burdensome for ordinary citizens, who are required to have a vast knowledge of European institutions and law, as well as substantial resources, in order to organise an ECI campaign (Troedsson, 2012). Since then, numerous evaluations of the ECI have emerged from sources as diverse as CSOs, EU institutions and agencies, MEPs, mass media and the academic community. There seems to be overwhelming agreement among them that the technical and legal requirements imposed by the Regulation make the instrument highly burdensome for organising citizens (The ECI Campaign, 2014).

Seeing that instruments of participatory democracy like the ECI represent alternative channels of political participation to the classical representative institutions, an overburdening policy design poses the danger of generating the deficit of participatory democracy described in the paper segment ‘Choice of Independent Variables’. Ideally, such forms of participatory democracy are designed to enable citizens to better articulate their will, which, hypothetically, contributes to the creation of a more accountable and inclusive political system. However, in order for this ideal to become

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reality, the procedures governing ECI implementation must respect the principles of democratic equality, fairness and transparency. In the absence of a procedural process based on these core values, the ECI might lose its potential to truly provide citizens with a voice in policy-making (Beramendi, et al., 2008). Additionally, as explained earlier, an inaccessible instrument might preclude the very target population of the ECI – the ‘regular’ citizens – from exercising their right (Troedsson, 2012). The high probability of this negative effect occurring due to overburdening procedures has been acknowledged by EP’s Directorate-General for Internal Policies, whose report on the implementation of the ECI states:

“If the ECI system, while ensuring a safe use of different tools in each phase of the process, includes too many requirements and burdens, the EU’s objectives to bring citizens closer to the EU and the citizens’ willingness to participate in the EU decision-making process may be negatively affected.” (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014)

The fact that policy design influences the resources required of organising citizens prompted the selection of this factor as an instrumental variable for organisational capacities.

3.3 Organisational capacity If the cultural approach explains citizens’ engagement in terms of their norm of participation, the theory that refers to an individual’s resources explains citizens’ engagement in terms of their capacity to mobilise (Letki, 2003). The studies pertaining to this academic explanation indicate that there is no difference of motivations between post-communist states and established democracies (Verba, Schlozman , & Brady , 1995). Previous accounts of participatory democracy revealed that new opportunities of democratic participation are based on self-selection and favour participation by wealthier and better educated citizens (Warren E. M., 2006). In the context of the ECI, this danger has been uncovered by Jacobs, who proposed, before the implementation of the ECI, that the instrument could be high jacked by special interests. He drew attention to the fact that lobby groups who afford to spend lavishly might attract more signatures than less resourceful citizens. In this sense, the ECI would cease to be inclusive of those segments of the population who are not

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represented by strong advocacy groups (Jacobs, 2012). If it occurs, such an effect would generate the paradox of overrepresentation of those who are already well-represented, thus diminishing the value of the participatory opportunity provided by the ECI and leading to political inequality (Cain, Dalton , & Scarrow, 2003). These inferences were made before the implementation of the ECI, when scholars emphasised the need to test them after the instrument has been activated. This opened a window opportunity for the present research to provide empirical proof that would address these concerns three years after implementation.

4. Theoretical framework The contribution of this thesis is an empirical analysis of theories previously raised by academics regarding determining factors of citizen engagement with the ECI. The first tested effect has been hypothesised based on normative arguments, while the second effect has been suggested to occur in view of structural considerations. Past researchers of citizen engagement with the ECI have assumed the two approaches exclusively, rather than complementarily. The present thesis, however, employs both perspectives in parallel because they explain two concomitant, but separate effects: the influence of national norms of citizen participation (the result of normative considerations) and of organisational capacities of ECI campaigners as determined by policy design (the result of structural considerations). For this reason, the analysis must be performed in two separate stages. In the first stage, the thesis tests whether citizen engagement is influenced by the type of participatory exercise preferred by the different national citizenries of the EU, i.e. the norm of participation. In the second stage, the studied effect is whether citizen engagement is influenced by the organisers’ capacities. This differentiation must be made in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of citizen engagement with the ECI because the instrument does not only provide an opportunity to passively participate by declaring agreement or disagreement with the policy proposal as a signing citizen, but also allows citizens to initiate legislation proposals as organisers. This means that the ECI calls for the engagement of two types of participants, each operating on a different dimension. Therefore, each stage of the analysis – as reflected by the independent variables - must

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take place on the appropriate dimension: citizens as signatories for the test of norm of participation and citizens as organisers for the test of organisational capacities.

4.1 Hypotheses In order to answer the research question, two parallel hypotheses are raised, based on the literature view:

1. Engagement with the ECI is influenced by national norms of participation; 2. Engagement with the ECI is influenced by the capacities of campaign organisers

The hypotheses are tested by looking at whether successful cases are associated with a high norm of participation and high organisational capacities, respectively. The hypotheses have been constructed having regard to both structural and normative arguments. The second hypothesis reflects the structural approach in the sense that it explores which capacities the policy design requires of organising citizens and how, in turn, these affect citizen engagement by signatories. This analytical approach has been adopted because the literature review unveiled that the requirements imposed by the Regulation are too burdensome for organisers. Preliminary research, however, hinted that the structural nature of the ECI is not sufficient to explain citizen engagement. The fact that the ECI is a tool of participatory democracy required an investigation into how this form of democracy manifests itself within the European citizenry, which suggested that, aside from structural considerations, normative ones may also influence citizen engagement, such as the norm of citizen participation in individual Member States. This is the scope of the first hypothesis test.

4.2 The dependent variable An accurate assessment of citizen participation with the ECI calls for the use of systematic and rigid definitions of engagement. Based on a comprehensive literature review, engagement, in the context of this analysis, refers to the main function the

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instrument should perform: provide individual citizens with a more direct voice in the EU policy process (European Commission, 2015). Given, however, that this is an abstract notion which cannot be measured concretely, it is necessary to use an indicator that is an approximate expression of citizen engagement. In the context of the ECI, the number of signatures collected by campaigns represents an accurate reflection of participation by individual citizens. This constitutes the studied dependent variable and it has been chosen in light of the fact that the ECI has been created precisely to provide European unaffiliated citizens with the opportunity to support a policy proposal that is otherwise impossible to promote through traditional channels of democratic expression (Garcia, 2012). The fact that the two studied effects occur on separate levels of citizen engagement prompts the use of different units of measurement for the dependent variable. Therefore, for the analysis of the effect of norm of participation, citizen engagement is measured as the average proportion of signatures (across the twelve cases) collected by each country from the threshold they are required to meet. This unit of measurement has been chosen because the studied effect reflects national degrees of participation. For the analysis of the effect of organisational capacities, the dependent variable is measured as the total amount of signatures collected by each campaign because the analysis refers to the ability of organisers to reach potential supporters of their cause across all Member States. To measure the extent to which the instrument is effective in engaging citizens in policy-making, it is necessary to establish benchmarks for what a successfully engaging ECI is. Formally, as indicated in the Regulation, an ECI is regarded as ‘successful’ when it collects the validated 1 million signatures within the given timeframe of twelve months and collects sufficient signatures from a minimum of seven Member States (Regulation (EU) No 211/2011, 2011). It is also important to note the stance of campaigners, who believe that, although an initiative is successfully submitted having met these two requirements, it may still not obtain a positive reaction from the EC and, even if it does, it might still not translate

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into implementation. Such instances are regarded by civil society as unsuccessful campaigns (Right2Water, 2014). While acknowledging the value of such interpretations, for the purpose of an accurate and consistent analysis the paper maintains its focus on an understanding of citizen engagement with the ECI as their mobilisation to support an initiative that brings their concerns to the attention of the EC. Therefore, the benchmark for successful citizen engagement with the ECI is limited to the collection of 1 million signatures, having respected the minimum threshold required for at least seven Member States, and obtaining a reaction from the EC.

Table 1: Criteria for successful citizen engagement with the ECI Successful engagement Unsuccessful engagement ECI campaign collects 1

million signatures ECI campaign collects the

minimum required amount of signatures from at least 7 Member States

ECI campaign obtains a reaction from the EC

ECI campaign does not meet collection of signatures criteria and does not receive a reaction from the EC

4.3 The independent variables

4.3.1 Choice of independent variables Preliminary research uncovered five potential influencing factors of citizen engagement, but only three have been selected for the present study: norm of participation and organisational capacities as independent variables, and policy design as the instrumental variable for organisational capacities. The reasons for including certain factors under the purview of the analysis and excluding others are explained in the following paragraphs.

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The interest for the first concern of the thesis – whether the citizens’ norm of participation influences their engagement with the ECI - comes from a literature reading which indicates that EU’s representative democracy crisis has resulted in the emergence of grassroots policy-making instruments. Citizens have lost trust in EU’s electoral process since they cannot decide on the creation of a genuine supra-national government through EP elections and the members of the EC – the initiator of legislation – are not voted into office (Kentmen-Cin, 2014). In light of the argument that in a good democracy citizens can rely on their lowest-cost political resource – voting – to promote their interests, the fact that the EU has failed to accrue the necessary electoral legitimacy indicates the existence of an electoral deficit of democracy (Warren M. E., 2009). The main manifestation of this deficit is a declining voter turnout (Van der Eijk & Franklin, 2004) and an increased interest in other participatory channels than traditional representative institutions (Warren M. E., 2009). Numerous alternatives of participatory democracy have thus emerged, designed to involve citizens more actively in policy-making processes (Smith, 2009). For the purpose of analytic clarity, two major categories of participatory democracy must be distinguished: direct democracy and deliberative democracy. While tools of direct democracy are designed to give citizens a decision-making role by allowing them to choose between policy alternatives, deliberative democracy exerts a softer influence over policy-making, by allowing citizens and their representatives to participate together in the political discussion and thus set/change critical standards for evaluating policy preferences (Budge, 2001). Academic views on the ECI differ in the sense that they either believe the instrument represents a transition from deliberative democracy to more direct instruments of participation (Smith, 2013) or that it embodies elements of both (Szeligowska & Mincheva, 2012), but they seem to conquer it fundamentally remains a form of deliberative democracy since it lacks the power to give citizens a direct voice (Smith, 2013), (Szeligowska & Mincheva, 2012), (Garcia, 2012), (Auer, 2005). As explained in the literatures review, the citizens’ level of engagement with instruments of deliberative democracy varies widely across Europe according to national citizen attitudes towards participation. Therefore, the study first tests whether citizens’ norm of participation influences their engagement with this

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particular instrument, without discriminating between organised and non-organised citizens. The second test of the thesis – whether capacity determines the level of citizen engagement – was motivated by academic assertions that such new forms of democratisation have developed their own deficit of participation, which stems from the fact that they intrinsically lead to self-selection, as they favour those citizens who have the education, democratic discipline and financial resources to actively participate in the political process (Warren E. M., 2006). Hence, such citizens become the dominating voice in the public sphere, which in turn leads to political inequality and underrepresentation of those societal groups who do not have access to the necessary knowledge and resources to take advantage of such political opportunities (Mansbridge, 1983). Considering that this effect has been observed as a general characteristic of alternative participatory avenues in other political systems, it is relevant to determine whether it applies to the particular case of the ECI. In order to accurately interpret the empirical data, one must also take into account possible biases introduced by omitted variables. Preliminary research uncovered criticism vociferated by civil society regarding the fact that the current policy design imposes excessive burdens on organisers and, in some cases, on signing citizens, which demand strong organisational capacities from the citizens’ committee members (Troedsson, 2012). Therefore, for an accurate analysis of a potential influence of capacities on engagement by signing citizens, one must first establish to what extent policy design may influence organisational capacities. As an instrumental variable, policy design helps determine the types and levels of capacity needed to conduct a campaign that meets all requirements prescribed by the Regulation. Preliminary research has also revealed two other factors that can determine participation: citizens’ attitudes towards the EU and citizens’ awareness of the instrument. They have not been included in this study, however, for the following reasons. A normative analysis of how citizen attitudes towards the EU affect engagement with the ECI has already been conducted by Cigdem Kentmen-Cin and it looked at citizens’ political cynicism, anti-EU attitudes and citizen views towards the

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number of votes their country is allocated in the Council of the EU. The current paper does not take into account the findings related to this research because the effect has already been observed.

According to civil society actors, citizens’ awareness is also a potential determinant of citizens’ engagement with the ECI and it also seems to be influenced by policy design and institutional efforts to promote the instrument. Ms Elisa Bruno – the EU Policies and Outreach Manager at the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) - acknowledged that the ECI is a right provided by the Lisbon Treaty, so the EC has to make sure it is known by the citizens. If the Commission does not fulfil its responsibility in this respect, the organisers are burdened with not only raising awareness on the issue they are promoting, but also on the instrument itself. Furthermore, other strains imposed by the policy design on campaigners influence the extent to which citizens start campaigns, obtain media coverage and initiate a European public debate (Bruno, 2015). On the other hand, some scholars posit that it is the visibility and success of citizen engagement with specific initiatives that determine citizens’ awareness of the instrument, and not the mere dissemination of knowledge about its existence. This potential effect is suspected to occur on the basis that successful initiatives are more likely to be picked up by the media than unsuccessful ones (Jacobs, 2012). The implication carried by this effect is a relationship of reversed causality between citizens’ engagement and citizens’ awareness, where the former becomes the explanatory variable and the latter becomes the dependent variable. These complex interactions between citizens’ awareness and the other variables, as well as the fact that there is no clear benchmark for awareness indicated by specialised literature – apart from the wide agreement that it should grow – suggest the need for an analysis that is beyond the scope of this paper. The present author, thus, recognises the potential for introducing citizens’ awareness in the analysis, but also considers that, due to these complexities, citizens’ awareness could constitute a subject of research on its own. Therefore, it will not be part of the purview of this thesis, while acknowledging that leaving it out introduces a bias.

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4.3.2 Norm of participation Considering that almost half of the EU is now comprised of post-communist countries and that the norm of participation varies widely across the Member States, there is clearly a discrepancy in participatory practice between the pre-2004 enlargement wave (old democracies) and the post-2004 accession wave (ECE countries). The evaluation of ECI’s performance requires, therefore, an analysis of how participatory culture influences citizen engagement. In view of the factors mentioned above, it is possible to theorise that the variation in norms of participation influences the degree to which the ECI is used overall. Before revealing the indicators used to measure this effect, one must clarify the level of analysis the measurement takes place on. The level employed is signing citizens, as they are the closest proxies to the community’s will and reflect acts of individual participation (Deplano, 2011). This reasoning also informed the indicator choice, which is provided by the Flash Eurobarometer Survey Report from 20133 - an assessment of European engagement in participatory democracy (TNS Political & Social, 2013). The indicator measures, thus, manifestations of individual participation which reflect whether citizens engage with different tools of deliberative democracy - and not of participatory activism, which refers to the potential and magnitude of individual and group participation in civic life (Petrova & Tarrow, 2007). It is a composite indicator, which aggregates the national percentages of citizens who have declared in the Eurobarometer survey that they have signed a petition, expressed their views with a representative at national level and expressed their views with an elected representative at EU level. These three sub-indicators reflect the use of national channels of deliberative democracy by individual citizens who want to voice their concerns with policies at both national and EU level. The sub-indicators have been selected with consideration to the fact that the ECI is more of a tool of deliberative democracy, rather than direct democracy, as discussed in the section on the choice of independent variables. To measure the extent to which norm of participation influences citizen engagement, a log-log regression model is constructed. It assess the effect of the aggregated values of individual engagement with tools of deliberative

3 The data is presented in Appendix A.1

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democracy at national level on the average percentage of signatures collected by each country across all twelve studied campaigns4 from the threshold required for that respective country. The countries are weighted equally given that the minimum thresholds required of each country are proportional to the population of that country so that Member States are equally represented in the signature collection process. The burden of meeting the imposed thresholds is also distributed randomly across the 27 studied Member States, since the minimum requirement consists of achieving them in whichever seven countries. Therefore, no particular country carries more weight than the others in determining the success of a campaign. The choice to log-transform the dependent and independent variables was made because the relationship does not seem to be linear, but positively skewed, as illustrated in Scatterplot 1. Furthermore, given that unit changes are inexpressive when using this type of data, it is more explicit to explain marginal changes in the independent variable as percentage changes in the dependent variable (Nau, 2015).

Scatterplot 1: Positive skew in linear regression

4 Appendix A.2 and A.3 contain he dataset used

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Scatterplot 2: Normalised data distribution in log-log regression

4.3.3 The accessibility of the ECI: policy design In light of the fact that policy design determines what resources citizens need to organise an ECI campaign, it has been selected as the instrumental variable for the second hypothesis. The intention is to observe to what extent elements of policy design influence the organisational capacities required of campaigners. Most of the ECI evaluations studied as preliminary research are comprehensive in addressing the structural issues of the policy. For this reason, the present paper will not provide an in-depth analysis of the problems deriving from the policy design, but it will rather use the already identified shortcomings to estimate what (intellectual and material) resources citizens need in order to engage with the instrument as organisers. The requirements that govern the organisation of an ECI campaign place certain types of burdens on the organising citizens, which demand different kinds of capacities in order to be properly managed (Troedsson, 2012). They can be classified into three main categories: human, technical and financial capacities. Based on the response of the ECI

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Support Centre to the European Ombudsman in regard to the functioning of the ECI, several particular capacity requirements that result from the prescribed burdens can be identified (ECI Support Centre, 2014). Firstly, requirements relating to the collection of signatures and to the protection of individual data provided by signatories demand that organisers have the necessary human capacity to correctly administer complex information technologies, as well as the procedures prescribed by EU and national sets of legislation. Organisers have to set up an Online Collection Software (OCS), which is costly and takes one to three months, a period which is discounted from the twelve months allotted to the collection of signatures. Given the complaints voiced by civil society about this requirement, the EC made available servers in Luxembourg and a free-of-charge software for campaigners who do not afford to establish their own OCS. It has been, however, reported to be difficult to use and to crash when traffic is high (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014) Nevertheless, all campaigns used the EC’s OCS to collect their signatures, considering it removes the hurdle of complying with certain stringent EU data protection rules (Thomson, 2014). Although this platform is readily available free of charge, organisers still have to administer it themselves (European Commission, 2015). Furthermore, the Regulation provides that organisers are liable individually for the data protection of the information obtained from signatories according to national regulations as well. The fact that certain countries impose strict rules for data protection, but do not provide the means to uphold it, represents an additional burden organisers must account for. In addition, the documents needed to perform the collection of signatures are regarded by organisers as overly-complex and too technical. The criteria for who has the right to sign an ECI and the data requirements for the validation of signatures differ in each Member State as well (ECI Support Centre, 2014). Organisers must, therefore, cope with 28 varying sets of rules and rigorously follow complex national and supra-national procedures. To do so effectively, the members of the citizens’ committee must have knowledge of EU and national laws and policy making (Hatton, 2015), legal, management and administrative skills, IT proficiency and organisational partnerships that could provide resources and expertise in areas where they lack them (Berg & Thomson, 2014). Under the purview of this thesis, these are translated into human capacities.

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The policy design also places certain burdens on organisers that demand strong technical capacities. The fact that the organisers are fully responsible for communicating their ECI in all Member States places the burden of translation and promotion on them. First of all, organisers have the option to provide translations of the initiative proposal in as many languages as they desire on the ECI website. However, these must be first submitted to the EC, which can either approve or reject them on the basis of whether they are consistent with the original version, but without offering a possibility for rectification or support (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). Moreover, because the signing forms vary from country to country, these must also be appropriately translated. Organisers have reported that, for an EU-wide campaign, approximately 40 different forms are needed in the collection of signatures phase (ECI Support Centre, 2014). Considering the difficulty of translating technical texts and the number of languages spoken in the EU, to make an ECI visible across 28 Member States demands either having an organising staff with vast knowledge of languages or the ability to employ very costly translation services. The reason why many initiatives do not have any translations posted on the ECI website is that, due to a lack of resources, the organisers employed free online translations services which do not meet the quality requirements of the EC (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). With regard to financial capacities, The ECI Support Centre estimates that the funds needed to support an ECI campaign that is procedurally correct and meets all the criteria – an endeavour that requires hiring staff, purchasing office equipment, conducting communication and outreach operations and building a network of volunteers - amount to 1 euro/signature (which can also be calculated into donated goods, services and volunteer time). Apart from the fact that, if this calculation holds, a successful campaign would cost approximately €1 million, the current policy design does not allow for the citizens’ committee to fundraise on its own, since it is not a legal entity. For this reason, organisers have to either find donors or to establish a foundation or association with legal status that can collect funds (ECI Support Centre, 2014). All the burdens derived from the policy design suggest that the organisers must have a professional understanding of EU law and of the relevant requirements imposed by the national legislation, as well as adjacent knowledge relating to the articulation of

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their cause as a policy proposal, operational capacity and funding to organise a transnational campaign. Such capacity is difficult to build afresh by citizens who do not have access to partnered organisations, a network of professionals in public policy, EU law, IT, public relations, media and communication, or the funds to commit to such an endeavour (Troedsson, 2012).

4.3.4 Organisational capacity The analysis of this variable takes place on the level of organising citizens. The large population they must cover in order obtain the necessary number of signatures, as well as the procedures they must follow, demand substantial resources to sustain a far-reaching and effective campaign (Levanti, 2014). To be able to accurately determine whether the strength of organisational capacities is correlated with the amount of signatures collected by the studied campaigns, one must first establish a unit of measurement for the strength of organisational capacities in each case. For the purpose of this thesis and on the basis of recommendations from civil society, three types of organisational capacities can be distinguished: technical, human and financial. These have been operationalised as indicators for the strength of overall organisational capacities based on the report ‘An ECI that Works’ by the NGO ‘The ECI Campaign’, which proposes certain levels of capacity for an effective campaign (Berg & Thomson, 2014). These recommendations are employed as benchmarks in assessing the strength of the studied organisational capacities. To measure varying degrees of deviation from these standards, the author developed an ordinal scale from a value of one to a value of three that covers weak capacities (1), moderate capacities (2) and strong capacities (3). This method of measurement has been adopted because it is necessary to distinguish between the degrees of strength of campaigners’ capacities in order to assess their effect on the amount of signatures collected. By ranking the quality of organisational capacities in relation to the benchmarks established by Berg and Thomson, one can determine whether more resourceful campaigners collect more signatures than less resourceful ones. Although

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this type of measurement is less precise than the mathematical expressions used for norm of participation, it proves instrumental for the analysis of qualitative data that does not indicate the magnitude of difference between observations, as it is the case with this variable (Virginia Tech, 1999). The values received by organisational capacities on this scale are awarded according to the following principles. The predominant quality, i.e. strong, moderate or weak, across the three types of capacity, in combination with the remaining quality, determines the overall strength of organisational capacities in each case study, as displayed in Table 2. If all three types of capacity produce the same result, organisational capacities naturally receive the value of all three indicators. If there are discrepancies between human, technical and financial capacities, the analysis of organisational capacities allows for compensation between the different types of capacity. If there are two predominant values and the difference between them and the remaining value is one interval, organisational capacity receives the value of the predominant value, as illustrated by the second case in the first and third column and the first case of the second column in Table 2. On the other hand, if there is a difference of two points on the scale between the two predominant values and the non-dominant value, the overall value of organisational capacities receives then approximate median value of the scale, i.e. moderate capacity. This scenario is exemplified by the third and fourth case in the second column of Table 2. When the values of all types of capacity differ from each other, the organisational capacity of the campaign receives the median value of the scale, which means they are classified as ‘moderate’. The reasoning supporting this framework of analysis, which allows for equal compensation among the three types of capacity, is that the author of the recommendations operationalised as the thesis’s indicators does not reveal whether certain types of capacity enable organisers to conduct a campaign more than the other types (Berg & Thomson, 2014).

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Table 2: Criteria for classifications of organisational capacity Weak

organisational capacity (1)

Moderate organisational capacity (2)

Strong organisational capacity (3)

3 types of capacity = weak

2 types of capacity = weak and 1 type of capacity = moderate

2 or 3 types of capacity = moderate

Each type of capacity receives a different value

2 types of capacity = weak and 1 type of capacity = strong

2 types of capacity = strong and 1 type of capacity = weak

3 types of capacity = strong 2 types of capacity = strong

and 1 type of capacity = moderate

*Types of capacity = human, technical and financial This classification is followed by a log-linear regression analysis of the strength of organisational capacity on the proportion of signatures collected by the studied campaigns out of the 1 million required. The dependent variable is log-transformed to correct for the heteroscedastic data spread and to make the results more interpretable (Nau, 2015).

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Scatterplot 3: Data heteroscedasticity in linear regression

Scatterplot 4: Data homoscedasticity in log-linear regression

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To have a better understanding of what is measured by this independent variable, it is important to clearly distinguish the meaning of the three types of organisational capacity: technical, human and financial. These are evaluated using the same scale – from one to three – as the one employed in measuring organisational capacity. The reasons for choosing this method of assessment are articulated in the framework for the strength of organisational capacity. Additionally, adopting the same scale helps maintain consistency in evaluating the individual indicators and the composite indicator. However, unlike the framework of analysis used for organisational capacity, this one engages only two sub-indicators for each type of capacity, based on the literature review. For this reason, determining the strength of the disaggregated types of capacity requires a measurement based on a binary system that allots ‘1’ for the presence of an indicator in a case and ‘0’ for its absence or weak performance. Having explained the framework, it is time to turn the attention to the description of each type of capacity. First of all, technical capacities help meet the communication and promotion demands of an ECI campaign. Strong technical capacities are important for the harmonisation of the campaign across the EU and a consistent communication of the campaign. They also contribute to the effective collaboration among national coordinators and with national authorities, as well as the appropriate use of national procedures. The most important technical resources recommended to organisers in ‘An ECI that Works’ consist of country-specific communication channels, such as national coordinators, initiative translations, campaign website translations and online promotional platforms, and media relations, such as platforms for support gathering and exposure in mass media (Berg & Thomson, 2014). Existing capacities are marked with ‘1’ and absent or weak capacities are marked with ‘0’. If both demands meet the criteria, the technical capacity is considered to be strong and marked with ‘3’. If one indicator meets the criteria, the campaign’s technical capacities are considered to be moderate and are marked with ‘2’. If none of the two indicators rise to the established standard, the technical capacities of organisers are weak and are marked with ‘1’. This scale is displayed in Table 3.

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Table 3: Criteria for assessment of technical capacity

Weak technical capacity (1)

Moderate technical

capacity (2) Strong technical

capacity (3) two indicators = 0 one indicator = 1

and one indicator = 0

two indicators = 1

* Indicator 1 = (country-specific) communication channels * Indicator 2 = media relations **1 = indicator meets criteria **0 = indicator does not meet criteria Recommendations on human resources are also included in the report by The ECI Campaign. According to the report, establishing partnerships with diverse stakeholder CVOs and a solid base of committee members and campaign staff increases the chance of success of an ECI campaign. The quality of an ECI campaign implicitly depends on the citizens that are responsible of its organisation. The campaign staff is crucial for ensuring a good articulation and communication of the initiative proposal, as well as carrying out procedurally correct, legal and transparent operations. Additionally, cooperation with stakeholders provides campaigns with access to communities that support the same cause and have a stake in its success. Organisational partners could contribute resources and staff, according to their possibilities. For this reason, it is recommended that campaigns partner with several organisations that are supportive of their cause. These recommendations are operationalised as two different sub-indicators, namely the expertise5 of the citizens’ committee members and whether they partner with stakeholder organisations (Berg & Thomson, 2014). To assess the overall strength of human capacity and to maintain consistency in measuring this independent variable, the same binary system and the same scale used for technical capacity are employed, as illustrated in Table 4.

5 Expertise refers to organisers’ knowledge/experience relevant to the ECI cause, EU law, policy-making, public activism and campaign organisation.

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Table 4: Criteria for assessment of human capacity

Weak human capacity (1)

Moderate human capacity

(2) Strong human

capacity (3) 2 indicators = 0 one indicator = 1

and one indicator = 0

two indicators = 1

* Indicator 1 = the expertise of the organising citizens’ committee members * Indicator 2 = campaign relations or partnerships with a wider network of stakeholder organisations **1 = indicator meets criteria

**0 = indicator does not meet criteria Lastly, the financial capacity of campaigners is given by their ability to collect and efficiently administer sufficient funds to promote their initiative and collect signatures from as many countries and citizens as possible - at least the minimum amount required for obtaining a reaction from the EC. Considering that ECI campaigns are costly undertakings, a solid financial capacity is key to their success. The estimated cost for a successful ECI campaign is 1 euro/signature, including donated goods and services, which can be supported by a budget of €50,000 minimally and €100,000 optimally. The most efficient way to secure funds is to obtain them from partner organisations or through crowd funding (Berg & Thomson, 2014). In light of these recommendations, the study uses two benchmarks to determine the strength of financial capacities: whether the total campaign budget amounts to the recommended minimum of €50.000 and whether it was obtained from donor organisations or individuals other than the committee members. The indicators are operationalised using a binary system, which allots ‘1’ for the presence of the respective indicator and ‘0’ for its absence. If there is evidence that both indicators are present, the financial capacity of the campaign is strong and noted with ‘3’. If one of the indicators produces a positive result, the financial capacity is noted with ‘2’, which means that it is moderate. If none of the two indicators can be observed, financial capacity receives a ‘1’, which means that it is weak. Table 5 exhibits the measurements visually.

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Table 5: Criteria for assessment of financial capacity

Weak financial capacity (1)

Moderate financial

capacity (2) Strong financial

capacity (3) 2 indicators = 0 one indicator = 1

and one indicator = 0

two indicators = 1

* Indicator 1 = a minimum budget of €50.000 * Indicator 2 = financing secured through donor associations/foundations or crowd funding **1 = indicator meets criteria

**0 = indicator does not meet criteria

4.3.5 Visual representation and possible scenarios of the variables’ relationship

Norm of participation

Organisational capacities

Citizens’ engagement

Policy design

Independent variables

Dependent variable

Instrumental variable

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If the findings show evidence that the two tested hypotheses hold, there are two major implications: (i) signing citizens with a certain degree of norm of participation (the extent to which they engage with instruments of deliberative democracy at national level) are more likely to support ECI campaigns and (ii) organising citizens with higher than average resources are more likely to incentivise citizens to sign the initiatives they are proposing. The second effect could partly take place due to an overburdening policy design. In other words, if the procedures campaigners must follow demand strong organisational capacities, a large segment of EU citizens is likely to be disqualified by default from being able to conduct an effective ECI campaign (Letki, 2003). If the first tested effect proves to be positive, it means that the intrinsic participatory discipline of citizens also influences the level of engagement with the instrument. It is also possible that the burdens placed on signing citizens influence who engages as a signatory. It has been suggested that excessive data requirements and the inaccessibility of the OCS discourage citizens from signing initiatives (ECI Support Centre, 2014). This means that potential supporters of certain ECI causes that are not familiar with such channels of participatory democracy might not be able to exercise their right to sign, while citizens with a history of participation will take advantage of the opportunity provided by the ECI to promote their agendas (Jacobs, 2012). On the other hand, if the analysis of the first tested effect renders negative results, it might be an indication that ECIs are mostly signed by those who do not benefit from effective tools of participation at the national level (Hartay, 2011).

5. Methodology

The research question has been formulated in light of studies on the ECI that were carried out when the instrument implementation was in its infancy, but giving consideration to the recent debate on its functionality as well. Initially, some scholars predicted that the initiative would be hijacked by the participating elite and special interest, as explained in ‘Literature review’. Although recognizable in several critical texts about the instrument, these two particular concepts have been articulated by Jacobs, who argued that the danger of an ECI capture by a narrow group of actors is a real one. The first risk stems from the fact that only citizens who participate frequently and have vested interests in the policy process will sign ECIs. The second threat is that of lobby groups who have the necessary resources to channel citizens into signing

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initiatives which are representative of a narrow segment of society (Jacobs, 2012). Considering that at the time of Jacob’s publication these were only forecasts, it is interesting to observe three years later whether these assumptions hold empirically. Thus, the present study operationalises these concepts into the two tested hypotheses and their corresponding levels of analysis. The danger of capture by participant citizens is tested by the hypothesis exploring the effect of norm of participation on signing citizens, while the danger of capture by partisan groups with substantial resources is tested by the hypothesis exploring the effect of the organising citizens’ capacities. The methodology adopted to answer the research question requires an analytical strategy that starts from existing material and produces a diagnosis based on hypothesis testing. Therefore, most of the required information is obtained from desk research that gives access to secondary data: academic journals and papers, the regulatory documents pertaining to the implementation of the ECI, reports provided by NGOs, EU institutions and the EU Ombudsman, opinions of ECI campaigners, as well as mass media articles and specialised news websites. Additionally, primary data - in the form of two interviews with an EU policy expert and an academic - has also been employed to provide a more in-depth understanding of the topic6. Both interviews were semi-structured, having an interview guide to support them, but in the same time allowing for enough flexibility to tailor the questions to the expertise of the interviewees. The data and research method used are, thus, qualitative, considering that the thesis analyses complex and intertwined political, social and economic phenomena that cannot be quantified into precise statistical measurements. However, statistical tools of measurement are employed in order to visualise the studied effect across all cases and to help interpret the results. The research is of an empirical essence in the sense that it taps into observations of reality and, based on them, formulates conclusions that are verifiable through experiments. This is not to say that conceptual methods, pertaining to more fundamental types of research, are left out. These have proved

6 The data is presented in Appendix B

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instrumental in developing the tested hypotheses, building the theoretical framework and interpreting the findings (Kingah, 2015). The method adopted to test the hypotheses empirically is the comparative method, i.e. the selection of a small number of cases that are representative for the entire population and their analysis in relation to each other (Seawright & Gerring, 2008). Although regarded as a weaker method of analysis, the comparative method proved useful for this particular research project due to the small sample available, as well as the limited resources at the disposal of the author. Considering that, since the implementation of the ECI in 2012, only 24 initiatives have entered the signature collection stage – which, for the purpose of this study, decides the success of the initiative – it is impossible to conduct a proper statistical analysis, which requires an N of minimum 100 observations in order to produce accurate results. For this reason, the case selection has to be conducted in a manner that introduces minimal biases. The first step towards achieving this is to increase the number of case studies as much as possible. Hence, the study takes into account all cases - successful and unsuccessful alike - that entered the signature collection stage and provide sufficient data. These amount to twelve initiatives that cover the period May 2012 – March 20147. The second course of action taken to reduce bias is to select comparable cases. This means that they are similar in respect to the instrumental variable – policy design – but dissimilar enough in respect to the rest of the independent variables that explain the hypothesised relationships – norm of participation and organisational capacities (Lijphart, 1971). Employing these selection strategies does not, however, guarantee the elimination of all biases. The fact that citizens’ awareness has been left out of the analysis entirely, as explained in ‘Choice of Independent Variables’, automatically introduces a bias because, although acknowledged, its influence on citizen engagement is not explained.

7 On 1st of July 2013 Croatia became part of the EU, increasing the number of Member States and, implicitly, of observations, to 28. However, because almost all cases are limited to EU27, observations pertaining to Croatia have been excluded from the purview of this study

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6. Findings and Analysis

6.1. Norm of participation As explained in the section on the theoretical framework, a simple regression model is used to assess the effect of national norms of participation on the average amount of signatures collected by each country across all twelve cases. The findings of the analysis are summarised by Figure 1.

Figure 1: The effect of norm of participation on signatures collected

As illustrated by the regression table, 1% increase in norm of participation is associated with 0.25% decrease in the number of signatures collected. Although this is a weak effect, as illustrated in Scatterplot 2, it reveals a negative relationship between the dependent and independent variable. This encourages an interpretation of the findings that supports the first hypothesis of the thesis. The observable negative effect, however faint, is unexpected, since previous qualitative studies argued that citizens are more inclined to engage with tools of deliberative democracy in countries with stronger norms of participation. The present results can, nevertheless, be explained with the help of academic literature on how political culture translates into (non-)participation. Scholars who have explored the topic argue that conventional forms of deliberative democracy are employed more frequently by citizens of established democracies (Kirbiš, 2013). However, one must bear in mind that these studies concern channels of participation available on the national level. The reason why ECE

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countries show lower levels social participation in politics is that their governments lack the necessary institutional frameworks and capacities to provide stable and effective participatory processes for their citizens (Hartay, 2011). In light of these considerations, one could argue that the ECI does not raise as much interest in societies with strong democracies as it does in transitional countries, because, as a supra-national instrument, it appeals more to citizens with narrower opportunities of participation at the national level. Given, however, the high P value obtained (0.478), which suggests that the observed effect is not statistically significant, it is difficult to establish with certainty whether these results reflect reality entirely. Furthermore, the R-squared is also very close to zero (0.02), so the data barely fits the model. It is possible that this statistical insignificance is caused by the qualitative nature of the study and by the small sample used in calculating the average proportion of signatures collected by each country across the twelve studies. In order to obtain a more accurate and robust interpretation, a significantly larger data set would be required. Notwithstanding the constraints derived from the small sample size, these findings could be built upon in the future, when more data becomes available, or with new approaches to the measurement of the variables. Thus, further analyses could reassess the effect and, subsequently, confirm or infirm the present interpretation of the results.

6.2. Organisational capacity 6.2.1. Description of empirical data To support the validity of the analysis results, an explanation of the degree of organisational capacity in each case is necessary. According to the theoretical framework, several indicators are used to determine the strength of capacities before proceeding with the regression model. This section lays down the reasoning behind classifying the twelve studied cases as having weak, moderate or strong organisational capacity.

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a) Stop vivisection ‘Stop vivisection’ is one of the three citizen initiatives that succeeded in collecting at least 1 million signatures. Its proposal was to abrogate Directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and to adopt new legislation that abolishes animal experimentation, replacing it with the compulsory use of biomedical and toxicological data that directly relates to human life. The total amount of signatures obtained was 1,173,130 or 117% of the required threshold (European Commission, 2015). The human capacity of the campaign can be classified as ‘strong’, considering that the two indicators selected in the theoretical framework show that the organisers had the necessary expertise and connections to a wider stakeholder network. The representative of the Citizens’ Committee - Andre Menache – is a qualified veterinary and an activist that has 30 years of experience in the policy area this ECI is concerned with. He was the president of Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine, the General Manager of the Federation of Animal Protection Societies and he is currently the director of Antidote Europe, all these organisations being preoccupied with the promotion of animal protection against cruel experimentation. In addition, he is also currently providing support to grassroots organisations that support this cause (Animal Consultants International , n/d). The substitute representative was Gianni Tamino, who gained relevant policy expertise as a former member Green Group MEP (European Parliament, n/d). The other members of the Citizens’ Committee had valuable scientific expertise or experience in conducting animal rights campaigns and working for foundations that support this cause (Stichting Animal Rights, n/d), (Querol i Viñas, 2014), (Antidote Europe, 2013), (Elvers, 2013). The campaign also benefited from the support of a large amount of partner organisations (Stop Vivisection, n/d) and MEPs (Stop vivisection, n/d), succeeding thus to integrate in a wide network of stakeholders. Regarding technical capacity, this campaign showed proof that both indicators were present. The communication channels covered a large segment of the EU population, with organisers having provided translations of the ECI proposal in all EU languages (European Commission, 2015) and website versions in 15 languages (Stop Vivisection,

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n/d). Adequate media relations also seemed to exist: the campaigners maintained a strong presence on social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook) (Stop Vivisection, n/d), created informative platforms within their website (Stop vivisection, 2015) and were promoted by popular international media outlets (newspapers, journals, periodicals and blogs) (Stop Vivisection, 2015). Therefore, the organisers’ technical capacities are deemed as strong as well. However, their financial capacity was moderate, considering that the campaign budget amounted to only €23,651 out of the recommended €50.000. The funds raised by the campaign were, nevertheless, obtained from several organisations with a stake in the success of the campaign (European Commission, 2015). Considering that two capacities are strong and one is moderate, according to the theoretical framework, the overall capacity can be regarded as strong.

b) One of us The aim of this initiative was to convince the EC to adopt legislation that would ban financing activities for the destruction of human embryos in research, development aid and public health. The organisers successfully gathered 1,721,626 signatures or 172% of the minimum amount required (European Commission , 2015). The representative of the campaign was Patrick Gregor Puppinck, Director of the European Centre for Law and Justice, a Christian anti-choice NGO (Pernet, 2013). His substitute, Professor Filippo Vari, is specialised in constitutional law, having also authored works on protection of human life (Il Timone, n/d). One member of the Committee – Countess Josephine Quintavalles – is a renowned pro-life campaigner in the UK, having led the pressure group ‘Comment on Reproductive Ethics’ and having been part of a wide network of pro-life activists (Hinsliff, 2005). The other members of the Committee also have a high degree of organisational expertise in related areas, such as theology (Baltroszewicz, 2013), human dignity (Frivaldszky, 2014) and pro-life activism (Latorre, n/d). Furthermore, the campaign was supported by organisational partners, such as associations and foundations, in each EU Member State (One of Us,

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2012). Hence, one could conclude that the human capacities of organisers were strong, having been embedded in a wide network of activists with expertise in pro-life campaigns. The fact that they also provided translations of the ECI (European Commission , 2015) and of their website in all EU languages, coupled with good media connections (Facebook, Twitter, the website’s own news section, national contact points, press outlets and online media channels specialised in public policy) (One of Us, 2012), shows that the campaign benefited from strong technical capacities. In terms of budgeting, ‘One of Us’ collected €159219 from three different pro-life organisations. With regard to the benchmarks set for the two indicators in the theoretical framework, this can only mean that the financial capacity of the campaign was also strong (European Commission, 2015). With all three types of capacity fulfilling the criteria set in the theoretical framework, the overall organisational capacity of this campaign can only be considered ‘strong’.

c) Water and sanitation are a human right a.k.a. Right2Water ‘Right2Water’, as this initiative is commonly known, called for EU legislation guaranteeing all citizens with sufficient water and sanitation as recognised by the United Nations. The ultimate goal of this proposal was to remove water from the purview of internal market rules and to provide it to citizens on a universal basis. It was the first successful initiative, having collected 1,659,543 signatures (165% of the 1 million required) (European Commission, 2015). Anne-Marie Perret, the representative of the Citizens’ Committee, was at the time the President of the European Federation of Public Service Union (EPSU) (European Ombudsman, n/d). Her substitute, Jan Willem Goudriaan, is the General Secretary of the same organisation (European Federation of Public Service Unions, n/d). They both evidently possessed the necessary expertise to promote the exclusion from

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liberalisation of a public service such as water at European level. The other members of the Committee also have considerable experience with public policy and provision of public services, most of them being part of national public service unions (European Economic and Social Committee, 2015), (Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft, n/d), (Nordström, n/d), (UK Government, n/d). In addition, ‘Right2Water’ was supported by numerous partner NGOs and public figures from a wide variety of professional occupations (from academics to writers, mayors and union leaders) across the EU (Water is a Human Right, n/d). Considering that both indicators render positive results, human capacity can be regarded as ‘strong’. As for communication channels, the organisers provided translations of the ECI in all languages (European Commission, 2015), with website pages dedicated to eleven countries. Contact points for each EU Member State and a few non-EU countries have also been set up (Water is a Human Right, 2013). In terms of media relations, the campaign had Facebook and Twitter profiles and a ‘News’ section on its own website (which continues to be updated) (Water is a Human Right!, 2015). The campaign was also promoted in international press outlets, civil society reports and national, as well as through EU governmental and non-governmental media channels. The firm presence of both indicators – communication channels and media relations – indicates that the technical capacities of this ECI were strong. The ‘Right2Water’ Citizens’ Committee members also seemed to have a strong financial capacity. Their budget amounted to €140000 and it was entirely provided by EPSU (European Commission, 2015). With regard to all of the above, it is safe to assume that this ECI campaign benefited from strong organisational capacities.

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d) Weed like to talk ‘Weed like to talk’ proposed a uniform legislation regulating cannabis production, use and sale across the EU in order to secure a better equality and non-discrimination before the law, to protect consumers and monitor health security, and to stop illegal trafficking (European Commission , 2015). The campaign was supported by 172,990 signatories or 17% of the total amount required for the validation of the ECI (European Commission, n/d). The members of the Citizens’ Committee had knowledge of European public policy, but not expert knowledge. Moreover, the available information clearly links only the Committee representative, Pierre Balas, with the organisation of this ECI. He was a European Affairs Master’s student and a fresh Bachelor’s of Social Sciences graduate at the time of the campaign, with short working experience (Balas, 2015). The CVs of the other Committee members do not include the ECI project, but they provide strong indications that these persons were indeed organisers, having studies and entry level experience with political science, European public policy and the EU governance model, and being part of the student network of the representative (Lorimer, 2015), (Tardell, 2013), (Toja, 2015). With regard to organisational partners, the campaign did not seem to benefit from any, considering that neither its website, nor other sources of information show any signs of such support. Given that the professional experience of organisers was closely related to public policy and advocacy for pan-European issues, although not at an expert level, and that the initiative did not benefit from any partnership, the author concluded that the human capacity of ‘Weed like to talk’ was moderate. Communication-wise, the organisers provided translations of the ECI proposal in eight languages (European Commission, 2015) and website versions in two languages. This suggests that the outreach of the campaign across Europe was much smaller than in the case of the three successful campaigns. Additionally, ‘Weed like to talk’ did not have nearly as much media coverage as the other three initiatives. Although the organisers used social media platforms to communicate their message (Twitter and Facebook, the latter obtaining more support than the page of ‘Right2Water’ and ‘One of Us’), they did not provide an updated platform for related news (Weed like to Talk,

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n/d) and they were absent from the attention of international press and other media outlets. The only media channels that picked up the news of the initiative were individual blogs that have a vested interest in the legalisation of cannabis. For these reasons, the technical capacities have been deemed as ‘weak’ (Weed like to Talk, n/d). With regard to funding, this campaigners did not declare any official budget and did not receive any funds from partner individuals or organisations, which indicates a weak financial capacity (European Commission, 2015). In light of these observations, it has been determined that the organisational capacity of this campaign was weak.

e) European Free Vaping Initiative The organisers of this initiative proposed the introduction of legislation which would classify electronic cigarettes as general purpose recreational products and no longer limit them as medicinal, tobacco or other types of products that constrain the users’ access to them. (European Free Vaping Initiative, 2013). The campaign collected 185,442 signatures or 18.5% of the amount required (European Commission, n/d). Unfortunately, there is not enough data available linking the organisers to any particular expertise that might help them conduct a campaign promoting a European public policy initiative. All they seem to have had in common was a concern for a less restrictive regulation of vaping, without showing proof of any medical, public policy, campaigning or any other related expertise. For this reason, and the fact that this ECI did not receive any operational support from other organisations, human capacity is classified in this case as ‘weak’. As for communication channels, the ECI proposal was presented in seven languages (European Commission, 2015), while the campaign website offered a version in every EU official language (European Vaping Initiative, n/d). The ‘European Free Vaping Initiative’ also made use of five social media platforms that targeted different

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audiences (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Google +), succeeding to gather substantial support (European Vaping Initiative, n/d). On the other hand, the initiative did not seem to have had any national coordinators or contact points. Furthermore, it has not been picked up by any international media and press outlets, except a few blogs with a stake in the cause, so it did not succeed in making itself visible through external channels of communication. Therefore, although the organisers made an effort to cover all EU languages and to use several online communication platforms, its lack of visibility renders technical capacities moderate. Furthermore, the fact that the initiative was not officially funded suggests that its financial capacity was weak (European Commission, 2015). Overall, the three indicators show that the organisational capacity of this campaign was weak.

f) ACT 4 Growth ‘ACT 4 Growth’ made four concrete proposal in order to develop a female entrepreneurship strategy for sustainable economic growth in Europe. If enacted, such a policy would bring about more enforceability of gender equality laws and more empowerment of female entrepreneurs and employees (European Commission, 2015). The initiative obtained 1,052 signatures or 0.1% of the amount required (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d). The representative of the Citizens’ Committee – Madi Sharma – is the founder of ‘MADI Group’, a network of international private and social enterprises and NGOs that focuses on creating innovative ideas to foster sustainable development on a local level, but achieve global impacts. She is also an experienced international public speaker on topics of entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, gender equality and corporate social responsibility, with a background in the policy area of women’s’ enterprise and public remuneration, and a previous appointment in the European Economic and Social Committee (Sharma, n/d). Her substitute – Marta Turk – is the President of Zavod META (a Slovenian NGO promoting female entrepreneurship) and a highly

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experienced lobbyist of women rights at the work place, empowerment of unemployed women and of female entrepreneurs (Turk, n/d). The other committee members also have extensive professional experience in women leadership and entrepreneurship, equal pay policies, (European) public policy and governance, as well as economic development (Samman, n/d), (Republik Österreich Parlament, 2014), (von Platen, n/d). However, the fact that there is no evidence that the campaign itself, with the exception of the individual organisers, was supported by a wider network of NGOs and CSOs, indicates that the human capacities were overall moderate. With regard to technical capacities, the data available is not sufficient to make any statements with certainty. The fact is that the campaign website is no longer functional and that there are no translations provided for the ECI proposal (European Commission, 2015), so it is difficult to speak of any official communication channels. The campaign did maintain a social media platform (Twitter), but its outreach was limited to 774 followers (Act 4 Growth, 2013). Desk research also shows that information on the campaign was not disseminated by international and visible media outlets. According to these findings, one can only conclude that the technical capacities of ‘ACT 4 Growth’ were weak. The campaign’s financial capacity, on the other hand, can be described as ‘moderate’ because one of the two benchmarks is matched: the campaign’s budget was financed by the Citizens’ Committee Representative’s organisation and another individual citizen, but it only amounted to €12,500 (European Commission, 2015), which is considerably lower than the recommended starting budget. Taking into account the value of these indicators, the organisational capacity of this campaign can be classified as ‘moderate’.

g) European Initiative for Media Pluralism The aim of this campaign was to convince the EC to bring amendments or to draft a new directive on Media Services as to ensure the harmonisation of legislation on the protection of media pluralism across all Member States. The organisers hoped to

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achieve a correct functioning of the internal market and the cultivation of a pluralist democratic debate though the free exchange of ideas (European Commission, 2015). The initiative was supported by a total of 31,066 signatures or 3% out the minimum amount required (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d). The representative of the Citizens’ Committee - Ségolène Pruvot – is the Cultural Director of European Alternatives (an NGO advocating for equality, democracy and culture beyond the nation state) and the coordinator of Transeuropa Festival, an event that stimulates discussion among people who do not live in the same place, but share common interests and a desire to give meaning to the term ‘European citizenship’. The initiative itself was represented at the festival, as it embodies the kind of participatory action that brings European citizens together in a transnational cause (European Alternatives, n/d), (European Alternatives, 2013). The other Committee members are also specialists or researchers in media pluralism and freedom of press, as well as media analysts, writers and journalists. They also possess a rich background in advocating for policy changes that would better guarantee media pluralism and the freedom of press (Open Democracy, n/d), (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 2013), (Patranoiu, 2015), (Citizens for Europe, n/d). The campaign also had two partner organisations: International Alliance of Journalists and European Alternatives (European Media Initiative, n/d). In view of the fact that the standards set out by both indicators are met, the human capacity of this ECI can be regarded as ‘strong’. The communication capabilities of the campaign covered 10 translations of the ECI proposal (European Commission, 2015), but only one language version of the website (European Media Initiative, n.d.). The organisers did make use of social media and other online platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Google + and YouTube), as well as a newsletter service. However, the support received by the campaign on these websites did not seem to be as high as for the successful ones. Furthermore, no contact points for individual countries were established. The campaign website did provide a section for news, press releases and other multimedia sources (European Media Initiative, n.d.), but their presence in international media outlets was limited to stakeholder organisations and individual blogs. Hence, while the organisers made use of several

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communication avenues to promote their message, their efforts were ineffective and their outreach not sufficiently broad, which is surprising given their expertise. For these reasons, the technical capacity of the ‘European Initiative for Media Pluralism’ can be described as ‘weak’. The fact that the budged of the ECI consisted of €2000 and was financed by the two organisational partners (European Commission, 2015) shows that financial capacity was moderate. In conclusion, the organisational capacity of this studied campaign can be regarded as ‘’moderate’.

h) Let me vote This campaign was conducted in order to promote the creation of a stronger political dimension of the EU by granting EU citizens living in another Member State than that of nationality the right to participate in all the elections of their country of residence (European Commission, 2015). ‘Let me vote’ collected 3603 signatures or 0.36% of the amount required (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d). The representative of the initiative was Phillipe Cayla, the President of Euronews and the Chairman of the Euronews Development and Member of the Supervisory Board of Euronews. Although his life-long expertise revolves mostly around telecommunications (Euronews, 2012), the fact that Euronews shares the same general scope as the initiative - to create a sense of a united European community (European Commission, 2015), (Cayla, 2010)– indicates that Mr. Cayla could have used his knowledge to conduct an ECI campaign. His substitute, Alain Brun, was a legal advisor of the EC and participated in drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights (Let me vote , 2015), so his expertise with European policy-making is self-evident. The other members of the Committee have been active in media & communication for citizens and politics (Rustema, 2014), having conducted cultural campaigns in a wider European network of organisations and individuals (Réseau Varèse, 2015), and in the organised promotion of a common European cultural and political identity (Delaby,

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2013), (Européens Sans Frontières, 2015). In addition to the members’ expertise in domains related to the initiative, this campaign also benefited from the support of a wide community of NGOs, as well as of the Committee of Regions. Furthermore, the campaign website mentions that ‘Europeans without Borders’ is the parent organisation of the initiative (Let me vote, 2015). In conclusion, the human capacity of this campaign is regarded as ‘strong. In terms of communication, the campaign provided translations in eleven languages both on the Commission’s website and on the initiative’s own website, which is approximately half of the amount of official languages spoken in the EU (European Commission, 2015). However, some website sections are absent from the translated pages (Let me vote, 2015). As for media relations, the campaign website provides a few press sources discussing the ‘Let me vote’ initiative and a newsletter service (Let me vote, 2015), (Let me vote, 2013). The Committee members also set up social media profiles (Twitter and Facebook), but, with a base of more or less 1,500 followers, they did not seem to have such extensive support as the successful campaigns. Furthermore, the campaign did not have visibility in international press, being exposed only on online platforms of civil society stakeholders. This is surprising, given the media and campaigning expertise of the committee members and the leading role of the Committee representative in European press. For these reasons, the technical capacity of organisers qualifies as ‘moderate’. In terms of budgeting, no sources of funding have been publicised. Given the obligation to do so in case a campaign raises funds, the fact that there is no data on this suggests that ‘Let me vote’ had a weak financial capacity (European Commission, 2015). Taking all three factors into consideration, the theoretical framework indicates that the organisational capacity of ‘Let me vote’ was moderate.

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i) End Ecocide in Europe: A Citizens’ Initiative to give the Earth Rights

‘End Ecocide in Europe’ was a campaign that gathered 105,679 signatures or 10.5% of the minimum required (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d). It was conducted in order to promote the adoption of European legislation for the prohibition of extensive damage, destruction or loss of ecosystems, thus criminalising ecocide. This would also entail holding natural and legal persons undertaking activities to this effect responsible (European Commission, 2015). In terms of expertise, the members of the Citizens’ Committee had substantial professional expertise that enabled them to run a transnational campaign on issues of European public policy. The representative – Prisca Merz – was previously an International Relations Officer and Analyst at Imperial College London, having a background in EU policy monitoring and research, as well as being involved in EU’s structured dialogue on youth policies (Merz, 2014). Her substitute, Viktoria Heller, was also trained in public policy, but also international business, which was a valuable combination of knowledge for a campaign that promotes a policy affecting private businesses. The other members were active volunteers and campaigners in environmental organisations and projects, having backgrounds as varied as humanitarian sciences, international and human rights law, humanitarian aid and sustainable development, among others (End Ecocide on Earth, 2015). Apart from the contribution of the campaigners’ own expertise with public policy and the promotion of environmental concerns, the campaign was also embedded in a large network of environmental activists, NGOs, foundations and CVOs, which provided them with organisational support (End Ecocide on Earth, 2015). For these two reasons, one could regard the human capacity of ‘End Ecocide’ as ‘strong’. As for technical capacities, the indicators used show signs of a moderate capacity. First of all, the campaign made use of country-specific communications channels, providing four translations of the initiative proposal (European Commission, 2015) and 14 language versions of the campaign website. The organisers also created Twitter accounts targeting specific countries. In terms of media relations, the campaign mostly maintained an online presence. The website offered a regularly updated blog and a newsletter service. The campaign’s Facebook page also seemed to be supported by

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considerably more citizens than those of other unsuccessful campaigns. ‘End Ecocide’ was also present on YouTube, where it regularly broadcasted informative segments by environmental activists supporting the campaign (End Ecocide on Earth , 2015). However, the initiative’s visibility did not seem to extend beyond the realm of internet users and active supporters of similar causes, as there is no indication that news about this ECI has been picked up by press and media outlets with wide international or European outreach. Considering that the campaign was quite effective in using country-specific and grassroots communication channels, but did not maintain strong media relations, the technical capacity is deemed ‘moderate’. On the other hand, the fact that this ECI was able to fundraise only €2,291 from one natural person suggests that its financial capacity was moderate (European Commission, 2015). With regard to the different degrees of capacities, the author concludes that the organisational capacities of ‘End Ecocide in Europe’ were moderate.

j) Unconditional Basic Income – Exploring a Pathway towards Emancipatory Welfare Conditions in Europe

The initiative, as suggested by its title, proposed cooperation between Member States in order to attain the long-term objective of ensuring the right to unconditional basic income to every individual EU citizen (European Commission, 2015). The campaign collected a total of 285042 or 28% of the minimum amount required (European Citizens' Initiative for an Unconditional Basic Income, 2014). The Citizens’ Committee was represented by Klaus Sambor, a civil society activist with valuable professional experience as a member or Board Member of several international movements for social alternatives to globalisation, social cohesion and basic income (Sambor, n/d). His substitute is also experienced in citizen engagement with public policy issues such as unemployment, poverty and basic income, having held positions as adviser, spokesperson, member and co-founder of several associations, foundations, stakeholder networks and other forms of organised civil

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society working towards the improvement of social security (Archiv Grundeinkommen, n/d). The other members of the Committee include a former MEP that worked in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (European Parliament, n/d), policy analysts and other activists for basic income in their countries of origin. Clearly, the organisers have substantive professional background in other organisations concerned with issues of income and poverty. However, the campaign itself did not benefit from the partnership of other organisations (European Citizens' Initiative for an Unconditional Basic Income, n/d). Taking into consideration both indicators, it is logical to conclude that the human capacity of this ECI campaign was moderate. Regarding technical capacities, ‘Unconditional Basic Income’ provided strong country-specific communication channels. The ECI proposal was translated into 18 European languages (European Commission, 2015) and the website of the campaign had five language versions (European Citizens' Initiative for an Unconditional Basic Income, n/d). Furthermore, the organisers established three main social media profiles (Google Plus, Twitter and Facebook), as well as national contact points on Facebook and Twitter. Aggregated, these internet profiles gathered substantially more supporters than the campaigns which used only one profile for all countries. The campaigners also provided a blog, a press centre point of contact, press releases and access to articles related to their activity (from international press and TV, NGOs, journals and blogs), as well as a YouTube channel with informative audio-visual material on the subject (European Citizens' Initiative for an Unconditional Basic Income, n/d). Hence, the technical capacity of ‘Unconditional Basic Income’ has been determined to be ‘strong’. The campaign was financed by two natural persons and two legal entities, but the total budget amounted to only €2,580. This means that the financial capacity of organisers was moderate. Given the level of the three types of capacity, the organisational capacity of this ECI campaign is determined to be moderate.

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k) New Deal 4 Europe – for a European Special Plan for Sustainable Development and Employment

This initiative consisted of a proposal of three measures to pull the EU out of the financial crisis: (i) a public investment plan for the production and financing of public goods; (ii) the establishment of European Solidarity Fund to create new jobs for young people; (iii) the introduction of a financial transactions tax and a carbon tax to increase revenues to the EU public budget (European Commission, 2015). The campaign collected a total of 8566 signatures or 0.8% of the necessary amount to have a successful initiative (European Commission , n/d). The Citizens’ Committee representative was the Head of the Secretariat for Europe of the Italian trade union ‘CGIL’ and his substitute was the administrator of the Permanent Forum of the European Civil Society (European Movement International, 2015). The other members were also active in the national branches of the Union of European Federalists (Union of European Federalists, 2015), a pan-European NGO promoting European political unity and the federalisation of the EU. Overall, the expertise of the campaigning staff was based on experience with employment policies and advocacy for the encouragement of unified European action. Additionally, the campaign was supported by several civil society organisations and groups, which increased its access to resources (New Deal 4 Europe, n/d). The organisers’ expertise and their presence in a wider network of stakeholders suggests that the human capacity of this campaign was strong. As for technical capacities, the communication efforts of ‘Deal 4 Europe’ included 14 translations of the ECI document (European Commission, 2015) and five language versions of the campaign website (New Deal 4 Europe, n/d). The communication and cooperation with national communities was strengthened by the creation of national committees, with their own representation, as well as by the provision of contact persons in each Member State. The campaign’s outreach strategy included presence on four social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and YouTube), which have, nevertheless, gathered insignificant support compared to successful campaigns (New Deal 4 Europe, n/d). The organisers further provided a weekly bulletin, a monthly newsletter and a press centre to maintain media relations and disseminate information on the evolution of the campaign. News about the initiative seemed to

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spread beyond niche media outlets to international press and TV, media channels dedicated to European Affairs, journals and informative blogs (New Deal 4 Europe, 2014). In view of these findings, one could conclude that the technical capacity of the campaign was strong. The financial capacity, on the other hand, was limited to €2,000, provided by the Italian Committee for ECI New Deal 4 Europe (European Commission , n/d). The low amount of financial resources and their administration through an organisation indicate that the financial capacity of the campaign was moderate. Observing the strength of the three capacities in this case, the natural interpretation is that the organisational capacity of the campaign was strong. However, this result is an outlier among the studied cases, as strong organisational capacities have been associated only with successful campaigns.

l) Teach 4 Youth – Upgrade to Erasmus 2.0. The purpose of the initiative was to propose legislation that would reduce educational inequality by enrolling highly-motivated and achieving recent EU college graduates and post-graduates in one- to two-years-long teaching programs in low-income communities throughout the EU (European Commission, 2015). The campaign collected 563 signatures, which is a mere 0.05% of the amount required for the EC to give the initiative consideration (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d). The representative of the Citizens’ Committee was trained in political science, international relations, EU law and diplomacy, having undertaken extensive studies and projects concerned with these issues. However, he did not have any working professional experience at the time of the campaign (Marre, 2015). The background of the other Committee members is similar, all of them having studied subjects related to EU Affairs and public policy-making and having entry-level working experience (Van Dam, 2014), (Toja, 2015), (Tardell, 2013), (Dadswell, 2014), (Cramez, 2015). As for the other indicator, the campaign did not benefit from the support of any organisational partners. The assessment of the expertise of organisers and their

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organisational relations shows that the human capacity of ‘Teach 4 Youth’ was moderate. With regard to (country-specific) communication channels, only four translations of the ECI proposal (European Commission, 2015) and one language version of the campaign website (Teach for Youth, 2013) were provided. Moreover, the organisers did not provide any national point of contact or representation other than two email addresses and a Facebook profile with very few supporters (Teach for Youth, 2013). News of the campaign was also absent from international press and TV, online media channels, informative platforms of stakeholder NGOs and even the website of the campaign. For these reasons, it is clear that the technical capacity of the campaign was weak. The financial capacity of ‘Teach for Youth’ was also weak, as the campaign did not collect any funds (European Commission, 2015). Assessing all three types of capacity identified in this case leads to the conclusion that, overall, the organisational capacity of ‘Teach 4 Youth’ was weak. 6.2.2. The results of the analysis The analysis of the influence of overall organisational capacity on citizen engagement was performed using a log-linear regression model, as laid down in the section on the theoretical framework. Unlike norm of participation, the level of analysis of this independent variable is organising citizens. For this reason, the data cannot be disaggregated per country, so the dependent variable is measured on a different scale than in the previous analysis. The aim is to assess how organisational capacity influences the success of the campaign, so it is necessary to measure the total amount of signatures collected by each campaign.

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The results, displayed in Figure 2, reveal that the stronger organisational capacity is, the more signatures the respective ECI collects. The regression coefficient is 1.47, which means, using the formula %∆y = 100 ∙ (݁ఉ – 1) for log-linear models, that a one unit increase on the organisational capacity scale is associated with 335% increase in the proportion of signatures collected out of the minimum threshold. In other words, when the strength of organisational capacity scales up by one interval, the number of signatures increases threefold. These findings reinforce the second hypothesis of the thesis postulating the capture of the instrument by citizens who have strong organisational capacities. The results are not statistically significant, but, as explained earlier, it is highly probable that this occurs due to the limited data set. The correlation coefficient is low, however, with an R Square of 0.17 and a standard error of regression of 2.67. This means that organisational capacities do not account entirely for the effect, so further research could look at other factors that might affect citizen engagement with the ECI on the level of organising citizens.

Figure 2: The effect of organisational capacity on signatures collected

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6.3. Discussion of findings As previously argued, the success of the ECI as a tool of participatory democracy largely depends on the citizens’ access to it and its ability to convey their needs to political leaders. Therefore, unequal citizen access may result in political inequality (Troedsson, 2012). This concern has been raised even before the implementation of the instrument, when scholars predicted two possible outcomes: the ECI would either enable average citizens to influence the European political agenda, or it would only be used by organised interest groups (Conrad, 2011) and citizens who participate frequently in the policy process (Jacobs, 2012). If the latter is true, a danger identified by Follesdal’s and Hix’s might arise: decisions taken by enlightened communities are not pareto-efficient and may not lead to the ‘common good’, considering the narrow segment of population they represent (Follesdal & Hix, 2006). The first and most recent revision of the instrument took place in April 2015, three years after implementation, based on feedback from governmental and non-governmental stakeholders who suggested that the second scenario has materialised. The public debate surrounding this revision has been highly critical of the first three years of implementation. While the EC recognised that technical improvements must be undertaken in order to make the ECI an effective bottom-up agenda-setting instrument, democracy advocates argued that the inaccessibility and complexity of the policy design impedes it from delivering on its promise of participatory democracy and favours participation only by resourceful and well-organised civil society groups (Mahony, 2015). The contribution of the analysis undertaken by this study was to empirically test these appraisals, which were conveyed by the two hypotheses of the thesis. The findings showed that the second scenario predicted by Conrad and Jacobs holds only to a certain extent. ECI campaigns seem to indeed collect more signatures when they are conducted by citizens who have access to vast resources. This effect partly occurs due to an overburdening policy design that requires strong organisational capacities for an effective and law-abiding campaign. On the other hand, citizens with a higher norm of participation do not seem to necessarily engage more in signing initiatives than

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citizens with a lower degree of participatory discipline. The analysis of this variable indicated that participatory culture exerts a negative effect on the amount of signatures collected by campaigns, perhaps because the ECI is more attractive to citizens who do not benefit from effective national channels of deliberative democracy. The fact that the two regression models rendered low R squared coefficients indicates that there may be other factors influencing engagement which were unaccounted for. An avenue worthy of further exploration on both levels of citizen engagement would be testing the third danger Jacobs describes, namely whether organisers focus their efforts on countries where citizens sympathise with the cause of the initiative, while using the other countries as mere filters to meet the 1,000,000 signatures requirement (Jacobs, 2012). Such an analysis would also indicate whether certain policy proposals attract support only from those national citizenries that have a vested interest in the implementation of that particular initiative. In this sense, it could also tap into the level of signing citizens by providing more insight into whether predominant citizen concerns determine certain ECIs to gather more support relative to others. As explained earlier in the paper, on the basis of feedback from civil society, awareness of the instrument itself could also constitute a determining factor of citizen participation. If this is true, it would be interesting to explore whether citizens find out about the ECI through institutional channels or from the organisers themselves (Bruno, 2015). This could enrich the analysis of organisational capacity by determining if raising awareness on the instrument represents a burden carried by the citizens’ committees. It would also be interesting to observe whether there is an effect of reversed causality between the success of campaigns and awareness of the instrument, in light of the theory that a larger amount of successful ECIs would lead to more visibility of the instrument in the European media and, thus, among EU citizens (Jacobs, 2012). On an entirely speculative note, it is possible that increased awareness of the instrument could encourage citizens with lower norms of participation to engage with the ECI, thus strengthening the effect of first explanatory variable.

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Bearing in mind that excluding the above-mentioned factors from the analysis introduces biases, the findings of this thesis show empirical evidence of one of the effects scholars predicted before the implementation of the instrument: the organisation of ECI campaigns is captured by well-organised and resourceful civil society groups. However, the expectation that the instrument is captured by citizenries with high norms of participation has been dismantled, since the ECI appears to be signed more frequently by citizens of countries with low norms of participation. The present research can provide a framework for future analyses of these predicted effects when more data becomes available, as well as of other potential determinants of citizen engagement with the ECI on both levels of participation. A series of consistent analyses on this topic could provide policy analysts and policy makers with a more holistic understanding of the causes of citizen engagement with the ECI. Such an achievement could go a long way towards strengthening the ECI as a tool of participatory democracy, incentivising citizens to use it and, eventually, maybe even legitimising the EU policy process and creating a cohesive European demos (Conrad, 2011).

7. Conclusions and Recommendations As explained earlier, this study was motivated by the recent public debate on the functionality of the ECI as it is currently prescribed by Regulation (EU) No 211/2011, as well as academic predictions on its success made before implementation. The electoral democratic deficit gave way to alternative avenues of political participation to citizens, one of them being the ECI. Although grassroots mechanisms like the initiative were created out of a need to make the policy process more transparent and legitimate, they do not represent a guarantee of democratisation. This is reflected by the fact that civil society is highly critical of the ECI, regarding it as inaccessible and unutilised by citizens at large. The thesis examined empirically two potential causes of the degree to which citizens exercise this right. For this purpose, two hypotheses have been constructed, based on normative and structural arguments. The first hypothesis was built on research indicating that the norm of engagement with tools of participatory democracy is influenced by the cultural and political

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environment of a country. The independent variable mirrored this aspect of the research and was designed correspondingly: it looked at whether there is a correlation between the citizens' degree of participation in the political process through other participatory tools at the national level and the amount of ECI signatories in each Member State. It was, therefore, operationalised on the level of signing citizens, without discriminating between organised and non-organised individuals. The results indicated that there is a stronger correlation in the case of Member States with newer democracies, where a supra-national instrument might provide a participatory alternative to a lack or diminished capacity of national policy frameworks of deliberative democracy. With regard to the second hypothesis, a different explanatory variable and an instrumental variable have been used to perform the analysis. The instrumental variable was proxied by policy design in order to observe which burdens are placed on organisers and thus determine the required capacities to conduct an ECI campaign. This variable has been denominated ‘the instrument’s accessibility’, as it consequentially determines which type of citizens are enabled to use the instrument as organisers. Therefore, this stage of the analysis was employed on the level of organising citizens, discerning between organised and non-organised individuals. The findings were that organisational capacities have a positive effect on the number of signatures collected by campaigns, namely that organisers with richer resources and stronger capacities collect more signatures than citizens who do not have access to them. In view of these findings, several recommendations can be formulated. As proposed by several stakeholder CVOs, the European Ombudsman and the EP, a modification of ECI legislation would be necessary to make the policy design more accessible and less burdening of citizens, especially for those without experience as activists and generous resources. Decreasing the burden of tasks, which currently requires unreasonable resources and risk taking, would allow organisers to invest more in capacities that are essential to the success of the campaign.

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An initial step in this direction would be to implement several practical, short-term measures that would not require a change in the legislation. These would provide citizens with organisational and administrative support and thus help them understand and operationalise the requirements set out in the Regulation. An example could be support with translations. The European Economic and Social Committee has already volunteered its translation services free of cost to any citizens’ committee that needs to translate its ECI documents and forms. An additional incentive for citizens to both organise and sign more ECIs would be a permanent, free-of-charge, secure, well-performing and user-friendly OCS provided by the EC. Such a measure would not only relieve organisers of the personal liability for the data protection of their ECI’s signatories, but would also ensure that the software can be managed and accessed easily, thus attracting more signatories (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). Since financial capacity is the strongest determinant of a campaign’s success and demands substantial funds which are not easily attainable by average citizens, a way to decrease this burden would be to offer reimbursements represented by a lump-sum per signature, as it is the case with the Italian ‘Referendum Abrogativo’ - a similar tool of participatory democracy (ECI Support Centre, 2014). Long-term measures are also recommended for enhancing the accessibility of the ECI, but they cannot not be implemented without making changes to the Regulation and its delegated acts. An amended Regulation could first address one of the most frequently invoked complaints regarding the accessibility of the ECI, namely the need to use a different form for the collection of statements of support in each Member State. Introducing a single, simplified form that is used uniformly across the EU would spare organisers of having to uncover the different national requirements for the collection of signatures and to use different documentation across 28 countries (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). Another amendment that would enhance legal certainty and incentivise citizens to organise ECI campaigns would be to modify Article 2(3) of the Regulation as to specify that citizens’ committees can be set up as national or European legal entities. This would help organisers better administer their campaigning efforts and financial operations, without taking upon themselves an excessive burden of liability. Article

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4(1) could also be amended to include the establishment of a ‘Citizens’ Initiative Centre’ as an independent body. Its service could consist of support with finding partners and campaign staff, such as pro-bono legal and technical experts, with information and clarifications on the rights and obligations of organisers, as well as the procedures they must respect and with follow-ups for both successful and unsuccessful initiatives (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). Furthermore, the exclusive obligation of organisers to provide translations could be removed from Article 4(1). This would allow for several alternatives that would ensure a better quality of the translated documents and at the same time enable organisers to focus on the cause of their ECI. Such alternatives could include having the EC check and directly improve translations, making available its internal translation services, providing funding for translations or even authorising the European Economic and Social Committee to lend its support (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). The provision of EC’s servers and OCS could also be incorporated in the Regulation as part of Article 6(1), making it thus a permanent solution. Another aspect of the Regulation that deters many potential organisers from conducting an ECI campaign is the high legal uncertainty and liability imposed on citizens as natural persons for the data protection of signatories. Considering this and the fact that few citizens have the knowledge, skills and financial resources to comply with the complex data protection requirements of 28 countries, Article 13 could limit the liability imposed on organisers to intentional unlawful acts or unlawful acts deriving from serious negligence. This amendment would be most effective if complemented by other measures previously recommended, such as simplifying data requirements and harmonising them across the Member States, the modification of Article 6(1) and the establishment of a ‘Citizens Initiative Support Centre’. Altogether, these measures would strengthen the ability of organisers to assume legal responsibility (Ballesteros, Canetta, & Zaciu, 2014). It is also important to address the opportunity this thesis opens for future research. The fact that the R squared coefficient in both analyses showed that there might be other potential factors explaining citizen engagement with the ECI confirmed the prediction made earlier in the paper that this study is biased in this sense. One

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suspected effect would be produced by citizens’ awareness, in light of the fact that the current policy design of the ECI places the burden of informing European citizens about the ECI mainly on organisers, although the EC carries the responsibility to do so (Bruno, 2015). This would mean that that where organisers have the capacity to conduct a successful campaign, awareness of the instrument and that particular ECI increases as a result of more public promotion (Jacobs, 2012). Therefore, citizens’ awareness could be studied as an interaction term in order to observe whether campaigns that have the capacity to raise more awareness are correlated with a higher amount of signatures. The author would like to stress, however, that these are mere speculations made on the basis of preliminary research. If further tests show evidence of such an effect, an anticipated recommendation would be to create institutional channels that would better communicate the existence, the purpose and the importance of the ECI for the legitimisation of the EU policy process and for strengthening the European citizenry. The recommendations provided in this paper are formulated in light of existing complaints from organisers and represent mere indications of possible courses of action. Hence, they are not meant as rigid solutions, but rather potential avenues of more in depth research on how to make ECI more accessible by citizens who do not have their disposal vast human, technical and financial resources. Future policy evaluations of the ECI must, however, also take into consideration the dynamics of citizen engagement pertaining to national norms of participation. As the findings resulting from the analysis of this variable suggest, the ECI has the potential to provide a voice to citizens with less opportunities of participation in the policy process. The conclusion drawn by the author from this is that a revised and more citizen-friendly policy design would engage a larger segment of the European population in policy-making and would help citizens communicate a more inclusive stance on European matters to the relevant EU institutions. If the assumptions posited by previous research on participatory democracy hold, an improved ECI could contribute greatly to the long-term consolidation of a European demos.

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Appendices Appendix A Appendix A.1: What citizens do to influence political decision-making

Q: Have you done any of the following in the last two years?

Country Signed a petition

Expressed your views on public issues with your elected representative at national level

Expressed your views on public issues with your elected representative at EU level

Total percentage, i.e. norm of participatio

n

Austria 32% 3% 15% 53.00% Belgium 35% 3% 11% 53.00% Bulgaria 23% 1% 9% 36.00% Cyprus 7% 7% 11% 24.00% Czech Republic 42% 1% 5% 49.00%

Denmark 36% 3% 11% 50.00% Estonia 19% 1% 3% 23.00% Finland 33% 2% 19% 57.00% France 51% 3% 14% 27.00%

Germany 24% 2% 12% 40.00% Greece 10% 2% 12% 27.00%

Hungary 18% 1% 4% 23.00% Ireland 43% 2% 22% 69.00%

Italy 23% 1% 5% 30.00% Latvia 17% 2% 5% 24.00%

Lithuania 16% 0% 5% 23.00% Luxembourg 34% 8% 19% 64.00%

Malta 25% 1% 22% 54.00% Netherlands 43% 1% 12% 45.00%

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(TNS Political & Social, 2013) Appendix A.2: Percentage of signatures from the minimum threshold obtained by campaigns per country

a) Stop vivisection

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 64.62% Belgium 0.00% Bulgaria 93.32% Cyprus 11.84%

Czech Republic 24.70% Denmark 4.73% Estonia 55.60% Finland 128.15% France 111.38%

Germany 221.28% Greece 11.83%

Hungary 163.32% Ireland 37.03%

Italy 1260.87% Latvia 46.92%

Lithuania 52.63% Luxembourg 28.69%

Poland 29% 1% 4% 35.00% Portugal 27% 2% 11% 45.00% Romania 22% 2% 8% 34.00% Slovakia 44% 2% 9% 56.00% Slovenia 32% 1% 6% 40.00%

Spain 34% 1% 9% 48.00% Sweden 46% 0% 6% 54.00%

UK 53% 1% 15% 72.00%

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Malta 36.93% Netherlands 50.82%

Poland 101.50% Portugal 68.52% Romania 6.65% Slovakia 123.64% Slovenia 325.12%

Spain 116.53% Sweden 51.07%

United Kingdom 35.57% (European Commission, 2015)

b) One of us

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 175.25% Belgium 33.20% Bulgaria 6.71% Cyprus 142.38%

Czech Republic 69.50% Denmark 77.57% Estonia 53.71% Finland 12.62% France 150.46%

Germany 185.69% Greece 321.07%

Hungary 278.38% Ireland 74.21%

Italy 1139.63% Latvia 135.29%

Lithuania 129.40% Luxembourg 121.53%

Malta 511.49% Netherlands 139.85%

Poland 616.90% Portugal 397.36% Romania 446.08% Slovakia 327.70% Slovenia 58.02%

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(European Commission , 2015)

c) Water and sanitation are a human right a.k.a. Right2Water

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 404.51% Belgium 245.75% Bulgaria 10.41% Cyprus 64.98%

Czech Republic 45.91% Denmark 35.85% Estonia 11.47% Finland 149.63% France 31.08%

Germany 1665.26% Greece 201.33%

Hungary 110.58% Ireland 27.92%

Italy 119.13% Latvia 5.82%

Lithuania 147.24% Luxembourg 123.69%

Malta 36.33% Netherlands 110.10%

Poland 10.36% Portugal 84.63% Romania 12.83% Slovakia 215.26% Slovenia 292.43%

Spain 143.34% Sweden 77.19%

United Kingdom 12.98% (European Commission, 2015)

Spain 357.60% Sweden 16.45%

United Kingdom 48.03%

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d) Weed like to talk

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 6.27% Belgium 28.80% Bulgaria 82.11% Cyprus 4.09%

Czech Republic 26.56% Denmark 26.92% Estonia 42.93% Finland 21.09% France 4.53%

Germany 28.16% Greece 0.90%

Hungary 42.53% Ireland 24.10%

Italy 11.86% Latvia 2.16%

Lithuania 43.18% Luxembourg 5.16%

Malta 5.11% Netherlands 8.22%

Poland 147.45% Portugal 7.13% Romania 17.23% Slovakia 33.61% Slovenia 15.35%

Spain 10.36% Sweden 68.74%

United Kingdom 28.82% (European Commission, n/d)

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e) European Free Vaping Initiative

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 7.12% Belgium 14.10% Bulgaria 0.65% Cyprus 4.53%

Czech Republic 4.97% Denmark 49.15% Estonia 10.11% Finland 62.22% France 51.67%

Germany 52.27% Greece 3.96%

Hungary 19.28% Ireland 6.93%

Italy 13.56% Latvia 0.70%

Lithuania 8.76% Luxembourg 4.16%

Malta 0.67% Netherlands 12.19%

Poland 22.80% Portugal 15.15% Romania 1.20% Slovakia 4.78% Slovenia 1.87%

Spain 87.98% Sweden 5.11%

United Kingdom 69.62% (European Commission, n/d)

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f) ACT 4 Growth

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 0.00% Belgium 0.40% Bulgaria 0.10% Cyprus 0.40%

Czech Republic 0.00% Denmark 0.20% Estonia 0.40% Finland 0.50% France 0.10%

Germany 0.20% Greece 0.50%

Hungary 0.10% Ireland 0.10%

Italy 0.10% Latvia 0.10%

Lithuania 0.20% Luxembourg 0.30%

Malta 0.40% Netherlands 0.00%

Poland 0.30% Portugal 0.10% Romania 0.10% Slovakia 0.10% Slovenia 0.80%

Spain 0.10% Sweden 0.10%

United Kingdom 0.20% (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d)

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g) European Initiative for Media Pluralism

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 0.70% Belgium 1.20% Bulgaria 105.30% Cyprus 13.40%

Czech Republic 5.50% Denmark 0.30% Estonia 0.10% Finland 0.30% France 0.60%

Germany 1.80% Greece 0.50%

Hungary 13.40% Ireland 0.70%

Italy 3.80% Latvia 0.00%

Lithuania 0.10% Luxembourg 0.20%

Malta 0.10% Netherlands 1.00%

Poland 0.20% Portugal 0.40% Romania 1.10% Slovakia 0.20% Slovenia 8.20%

Spain 0.60% Sweden 0.30%

United Kingdom 13.50% (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d)

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h) Let me vote

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 0.70% Belgium 1.30% Bulgaria 0.10% Cyprus 0.10%

Czech Republic 0.10% Denmark 0.40% Estonia 0.10% Finland 0.30% France 1.40%

Germany 0.90% Greece 0.20%

Hungary 0.10% Ireland 0.30%

Italy 0.30% Latvia 0.20%

Lithuania 0.30% Luxembourg 7.80%

Malta 0.10% Netherlands 0.40%

Poland 0.10% Portugal 0.40% Romania 0.10% Slovakia 0.10% Slovenia 0.10%

Spain 1.30% Sweden 0.30%

United Kingdom 0.60% (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d)

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i) End Ecocide in Europe: A Citizens’ Initiative to give the Earth Rights

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 31.50% Belgium 55.10% Bulgaria 11.40% Cyprus 1.20%

Czech Republic 1.30% Denmark 15.00% Estonia 54.50% Finland 7.90% France 51.60%

Germany 18.60% Greece 1.40%

Hungary 2.30% Ireland 10.90%

Italy 15.60% Latvia 1.10%

Lithuania 6.60% Luxembourg 3.00%

Malta 2.50% Netherlands 29.30%

Poland 1.30% Portugal 15.80% Romania 10.90% Slovakia 1.70% Slovenia 11.90%

Spain 6.40% Sweden 14.20%

United Kingdom 26.90% (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d)

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j) Unconditional Basic Income – Exploring a Pathway towards

Emancipatory Welfare Conditions in Europe

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 59.00% Belgium 115.20% Bulgaria 237.10% Cyprus 2.50%

Czech Republic 27.70% Denmark 32.80% Estonia 108.50% Finland 16.60% France 67.40%

Germany 54.60% Greece 17.40%

Hungary 88.00% Ireland 13.00%

Italy 8.30% Latvia 2.30%

Lithuania 2.50% Luxembourg 2.50%

Malta 4.30% Netherlands 104.30%

Poland 12.50% Portugal 41.60% Romania 16.50% Slovakia 65.10% Slovenia 154.20%

Spain 62.80% Sweden 64.00%

United Kingdom 18.50% (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d)

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k) New Deal 4 Europe – for a European Special Plan for Sustainable Development and Employment

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 3.10% Belgium 4.10% Bulgaria 0.20% Cyprus 0.20%

Czech Republic 0.20% Denmark 0.10% Estonia 0.10% Finland 0.30% France 2.90%

Germany 0.70% Greece 0.40%

Hungary 0.30% Ireland 0.10%

Italy 6.20% Latvia 0.00%

Lithuania 0.00% Luxembourg 0.70%

Malta 0.10% Netherlands 0.30%

Poland 0.10% Portugal 0.40% Romania 0.10% Slovakia 0.10% Slovenia 0.20%

Spain 2.90% Sweden 0.20%

United Kingdom 0.20% (European Commission, 2014)

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l) Teach 4 Youth – Upgrade to Erasmus 2.0.

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country

Austria 0.10% Belgium 0.20% Bulgaria 0.10% Cyprus 0.00%

Czech Republic 0.00% Denmark 0.00% Estonia 0.10% Finland 0.00% France 0.40%

Germany 0.10% Greece 0.10%

Hungary 0.10% Ireland 0.00%

Italy 0.10% Latvia 0.00%

Lithuania 0.00% Luxembourg 0.00%

Malta 0.00% Netherlands 0.00%

Poland 0.10% Portugal 0.00% Romania 0.00% Slovakia 0.10% Slovenia 0.00%

Spain 0.10% Sweden 0.10%

United Kingdom 0.00% (Citizens' Initiatives, n/d)

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Appendix A.3: Percentage of signatures from the minimum threshold obtained by countries on average across all 12 campaigns.

Country Proportion of signatures out of the required amount/country on average

Austria 62.74% Belgium 42.59% Bulgaria 45.64% Cyprus 20.42%

Czech Republic 17.29% Denmark 20.25% Estonia 28.12% Finland 33.30% France 39.45%

Germany 185.79% Greece 46.57%

Hungary 59.80% Ireland 16.00%

Italy 215.25% Latvia 16.21%

Lithuania 31.92% Luxembourg 24.70%

Malta 49.97% Netherlands 38.02%

Poland 76.13% Portugal 52.57% Romania 43.41% Slovakia 66.23% Slovenia 70.37%

Spain 63.43% Sweden 24.64%

United Kingdom 21.25%

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Appendix A.4: Percentage of signatures from the minimum threshold obtained by campaigns from all countries

ECI Proportion of total signatures out of minimum amount required

Stop vivisection 117.313% One of Us 172.163%

Right2Water 165.954% Weed like to talk 17.299%

European Free Vaping Initiative 18.544% ACT 4 Growth 0.105%

European Initiative for Media Pluralism 3.107% Let me vote 0.360%

End Ecocide in Europe: A Citizens’ Initiative to give the Earth Rights 10.568%

Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) - Exploring a pathway towards emancipatory welfare conditions in the EU 28.504%

New Deal 4 Europe - for a European Special Plan for Sustainable Development and Employment 0.844%

Teach for Youth -- Upgrade to Erasmus 2.0 0.056%

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Appendix B: Transcripts of interviews conducted by the author Appendix B.1: Interview with Elisa Bruno Duration: 22 min 38 sec Beginning of interview: small talk Q: What is your opinion on the functioning of the ECI so far? A: If you look at the implementation of the law, the law has been implemented. So if you look at the implementation of the regulation, as far as the law is concerned, it has been implemented. Of course, then…if I speak on behalf of ECAS, we believe that the instrument needs to be improved, therefore, the functioning, as long as we look at the regulation, it functions well, but the regulation is not as user-friendly as we wanted. Q: I understand, ok. So in this case, then, do you believe that it has achieved its goal, more or less, to bring the citizens’ concerns to the EC? A: To a certain extent, some of the…so, our approach is that, to make sure that citizens know about the right to be heard at the European level, it takes time. It takes time. So in three years, of course, we cannot expect too much. On the other hand, it’s a mild achievement. So, on one hand, if you see the statistics, 6.5…about 6.5 million citizens have signed an ECI, which, if you consider we are 500 million…Yes, 500 million...is not too much. On the other hand, 6 million is not to be disregarded. So, to a certain extent, this needs to be improved, but I think we are already in a good direction. Q: Ok. And then, related to this, what is your opinion on the number of ECIs registered and the number of ECIs that were successful so far? A: I think that the number of ECIs registered is very low compared to the number of the ECIs presented. The number of rejections is worrisome. I mean 40% of the ECIs that were proposed were refused, so I think that there is something that is stopping definitely the success rate of the ECI. Also, if you look at the fact that only 3 initiatives have collected 1 million signatures or more than 1 million, this tells us two things

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mainly. The first thing that it’s telling us is that collecting 1 million signatures under the regulation, so taking into consideration all the different steps and requirements of the regulation, it is not as easy as the policy makers in Brussels made us think at the beginning: “it’s just as simple as having clicks on Facebook”, as somebody would say five years ago. On the other hand, the other thing it is telling us is that maybe there’s been a miss…uhm…let me be more diplomatic…there’s been a misconception of how difficult it is also on behalf of the organisers. Some of the organisers thought that collecting signatures online, just because this instrument is giving you the chance to collect it online, they thought that, by having the OCS, everything would have been easier. This has proven to be slightly different because doing a campaign, no matter what are the instruments to collect the signatures that you have, is still a transnational campaign and citizens need to be aware of the fact that, if you need to speak in 24 different languages, in 28 different countries and have a one-year limit to raise awareness and collect signatures or statements of support for your campaign, it’s an effort. And…therefore, they also need to be slightly more organised. Q: I understand. So in this case, do you believe that it is also a problem of citizens not having the willingness or just not having the awareness to get involved? A: So, on one hand, the regulation needs to be more citizens-friendly. Lots of reforms that I know also, that I think you are also aware, that we support, so: a) we need to give citizens a clear understanding of what is an ECI that can be registered, so what is a policy of the European Union that the EC has competences to legislate and what can be registered and what cannot be registered. So: a) the registration process should be more transparent and clear and have clearer rules. B), so 2) basically: we need to have an open collection signatures [A/N: system] that is more user-friendly as well; so that is customised to the campaigns of the different organisations, that doesn’t require each and every citizens to fill in their personal data – so also a harmonisation of the data requirements. We need to make sure that, also, organisers can set their own date for the start of the collection and this is not the date when the EC registers the initiatives. And then, other things, such as the liability of the organisers vis-à-vis the data protection and so on and so forth. Besides this, I also think that the organisers, as I said before, need to make a bit of their own…need to do a bit of homework themselves, so there are lots of good practices out there on how to run a successful campaign, which can…Yes…which can help organisers in setting up, for instance, an online campaign,

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digital marketing strategies, in promoting their initiative online and setting coalitions or coalition-building etc etc. So both on behalf of the instrument, the instrument needs absolutely huge improvements, but also the organisers need to be more aware of what it takes to collect 1 million signatures and actually raise awareness of your issue Europe-wide. Q: I understand. You already talked a bit about technical and administrative obstacles in running a successful campaign. So then what would be the biggest problems that ECI campaigners think that are the most problematic for them? A: So, for them, if we look before launching the campaign, the biggest problem is to actually, if an organiser has an idea, to understand if and to what extent this idea can become an ECI, can be accepted at the EC. Also the time people come to ask “Oh, I have this idea”…one, like two weeks ago, was about how to manage waste and how to reduce waste in the sea, so sea waste, and their issue was “ok, is this something you can do?”. So basically, what we need to make sure is that there is a clear understanding of what the EU can do, so what the EC can legislate upon and what the EC cannot legislate upon. So I think this is the first, also how we called it in our [N/A: not understandable], complication. And let’s assume that you are successful in registering your initiative, the second one is “how do I communicate my issue without having to also communicate what is the instrument I am using to raise the issue?” So most of the organisers, I’m sure you know, have this problem that, when they want to raise awareness of what they are doing, they also need to explain what is an ECI. Which I think is a bit of a problem, because if people don’t know that they have the right to support an initiative, then then, if you ask the EC to legislate on a problem, then for them, for the organisers, it is a burden because they do not only have to make the communication of the initiative, but also have to make the communication of the instrument itself. Third is the online collection signature [A/N: system], so the fact that it takes time. It was estimated, from what I know from organisers, it takes about four months to set it up. But then you lose basically…these four months are lost. And you know that, for instance for the basic income, they collected their signatures at the end of the campaign, it takes time. So the sooner you set it up, the better it is. Then the other problem is that most of the organisers don’t have a legal entity, so they’re citizens. Therefore, when it comes to funding, when it comes to the liability of the data protection, they are single people responsible or liable for their actions. There should

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be a sort of a legal entity that forms. The Citizens’ Committee should have legal entity so that the responsibilities are limited and people are not responsible for their action overall. And other small changes, I mean the harmonisation of data protection, of data collection I mean, requirements is also important and the fact that most the citizens that move…so there’s always this figure of 11 million, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. Most citizens that move from one country to another suffer in one way or another of the possibility of not being able to sign an ECI either because they are residents, but then not citizens of the country etc etc. Q: Yes, I understand. I have a question regarding the legal entity problem: do you think it could be somehow introduced in a future reform of the regulation, to make it compulsory? Do you think that would be a solution? A: For the organisers? Q: Yes, for them to be a legal person. A: This requires a change in the regulation. So if we arrive at the point of changing the regulation, then I hope…I also feel that the Parliament and the Commission are not against it, in principle. But I’m not sure if we are going to revise the regulation at this point in time. I don’t think that the Commission wants to do that, from what I hear. Q: Do you know why? A: No, no. I mean this you need to ask them. Q: I understand. A: I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Q: No, I was just curious because I was reading a lot of criticism regarding that…that a reform would be really necessary to make the instrument more accessible. A: I don’t think they want to open the Pandora box, so… Q: Yes, I understand.

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A: But there are things we can do without modifying the treaty, sorry, the regulation. So you can amend the implementing regulation, you can amend the delegated acts that are linked to the ECI, you can make sure, for instance, that the practice in the Commission is that the registration is more transparent, we can make sure that the hearing in the EP has clearer rules of who are the…so you change the rules of procedure…now I don’t remember the numbers, but you can double check, but the two rules of procedure regulating the ECI hearing in the EP to make it more transparent and harmonised within the different ECIs because now we will see it on Monday, but the two last hearings were completely different one from the other. So Yes…there are things not so difficult to do without modifying the regulation. Q: Ok, that’s great news actually. And one last question: What do you think that the Commission could do to incentivise citizens to make use of the ECI and to raise awareness? Or do you think this is a channel that only ECI campaigners could use? A: I think that EC needs to make sure that this right, because this is a right, needs to make sure that this right is known. And if there is always a big communication campaign each and every time the EP…there are the EP sort of actions, then we don’t see why there isn’t such a campaign for the ECI. Or if there is a big campaign on passengers’ rights or consumers’ rights, there should also be a campaign on the ECI and the right that citizens have under the Lisbon Treaty. So first the EC should give more means in their Communication DG and the SecGen8 in order to communicate more effectively on ECI. And the second thing that the EC should do is to be more…to have clearer rules of what is admissible and what is not. We should really start at the beginning of the process: explaining people what is the role of the EC, what is admissible and what is not, have clearer rules and procedures internally when it comes to taking a decision on and why an initiative is registered and why it is not. For instance, we proposed, but this requires a change in the regulation, but we proposed that the EC should have an ECI officer inside the EC, some figure based on competition law practice, and this figure of the ECI Officer is an independent person that sits in the EC and his role is to liaise with ECI organisers in order to help them in formulating the right ECI, based on their wishes. So that there is also a learning process established in the policy formulation because a lot of citizens have great ideas on what the EU

8 Secretariat-General

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should do, it’s just that when it comes to the law, Yes, it’s so complicated that they don’t have the knowledge. Q: Yes, I understand that it’s hard to have an oversight of all EU competences and what measures they apply to. A: Yes, it’s difficult for us that we studied this for years, so it’s an enormous…it shouldn’t be the case. Q: Yes. Alright, these were my questions. Thank you very much for your answers! A: That was fast! You’re welcome! Continuation: small talk Appendix B.2: Interview with Lucy Hatton Duration: 18 min 01 sec Beginning of interview: small talk Q: I would first like to know what is your opinion, in general, on the functioning of the ECI since it’s been implemented. A: I can tell you the kind of…that the findings that I have made through my research is that the ECI hasn’t necessarily lived up to the expectations of the organisers and people more generally. I don’t know, I haven’t really looked into what the expectations were of the EU institutions, but there’s certainly this air of disappointment among interested people. But what I kind of focus on is that there’ve been a number of unexpected and unanticipated consequences - positive consequences - coming from the ECI, that – I don’t know if they can make up for the deficiencies – but they certainly help in some way. Q: Could you name a few of those?

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A: Just things like the types of people who are engaging, the types of issues that are being pursued through the ECI…I mean I go into a lot of normative theory to highlight the positives of these things. Q: I understand. So, in that sense, do you that the ECI has contributed significantly to participatory democracy in Europe? A: I’m not sure about significantly, but I certainly think that it has had a positive contribution, yes. Q: Alright. So do you have any opinion on the number of ECIs that have been registered so far or the number of ECIs that have been actually successful so far? A: Honestly, I think it’s been disappointing in terms of how many have been registered or how many have been successful. I think the organisers of the ECI and the sort of civil society organisations that are advocating for the ECI also are very disappointed in the numbers that have been coming out. But then, at the end of the day, it’s an experiment in many ways, so we don’t really know in the long-term how it’s going to be used. Q: Yes, I understand. It’s sort of a prototype, it’s the first transnational tool of participatory democracy… A: Yes, exactly! Q: …so I understand there’s a lot of room for improvement… A: Yes! Q: Alright. Do you have any opinion on why citizens are not making use of this instrument as much as expected? A: I think the answer to that is simply that people don’t know that it exists, people don’t know that there’s this opportunity. You know, even in academic circles I talk to people who work on the European Union and…who don’t know…you know, they have

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this vague recollection of something being mentioned in the Lisbon Treaty, but don’t actually know what has happened as a consequence of that, don’t know how they can get involved. Yes…I think a lot of it is lack of awareness basically. Q: I understand. But now I want to raise an interesting point I’ve been discussing about with my supervisor that…let’s say that the EC conducted a massive raising awareness campaign and a lot more citizens would find out about the instrument. Do you believe this would change the degree of participation? In the sense that it’s maybe also a sort of bottom-up effect, that citizens do not want to or are not…I don’t know…not used to participating in such a manner. A: Yes…I do see that point and I also think that participation would also likely increase if the Commission were to act on a successful ECI. So I think that, until there’s evidence of consequences in some of these campaigns, people will think it’s just kind of a waste of their time to participate. So I think that people also need to see that it can have an impact as well. Q: I understand. So in that sense, do you also think that the EC would have to loosen up the admissibility criteria or what changes do you think they should implement? A: I think it depends. I think that, if the admissibility criteria, if the intention of the ECI, you know, if the objective is to encourage discussion and debate, then I think the admissibility criteria should be loosened because even initiatives…you know, there have been many initiatives that were refused registration that would still be able to generate the kind of transnational debate…uhm…that could benefit democracy. So it depends, in a way…I would like to see more uniform [N/A: the connection was momentarily interrupted, the word is unclear – sounded like ‘signing of’] ECIs across all Member States. I think that’s a bit of a barrier to positive [N/A: faulty connection again, missed a word], participation, things like that…Yes…I’m not really sure about this question. It’s not something I focus on, it’s only…I have only a few vague thoughts on what I would like to see changed. Q: I see. I’m curious: have you talked to any ECI campaigners for your research?

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A: Yes, I have. Q: And what do they have to say about…like what are the most problematic aspects for them? A: I think similar things to what I’ve already said. So they’re concerned about the different criteria for signing the ECI in different states, they’re concerned about the time-period they have to collect signatures, they’re concerned about the legal status of Citizens’ Committees, the quality of the online collection software, these kind of things…the lack of support from the Commission. Actually if you…I think you said you’ve looked at “An ECI that works” publication. I think that’s a very good place where everything is kind of summarised. All different kinds of ECI campaigners who contributed to that and it’s a lot, you know, it makes up a large proportion of the total campaigns so far. They set out all their major concerns and that reflects everything that I’ve heard from them so far. Q: That’s great actually because, in my research and interviews with other people, I find a lot of common ground exactly on these aspects that you mentioned. A: Yes, the same things come up over and over again. Q: Alright. And then I have one last question for you: how do you think EC could incentivise citizens to make use of the ECI? Do you have any ideas on what could be done in this sense? A: Incentivise…do you mean people to kind of sign and get involved or to organise? Q: Both to organise and to sign. A: Yes, I mean a lot of the things that we’ve already talked about, things that ECI campaigners want to see. I think if those were fixed, people would be more inclined to get involved and, as I mentioned, if the Commission were to act on a successful ECI campaign and demonstrate that they do take it seriously and it is a credible instrument for citizen engagement, citizen involvement in EU politics, I think that would send a really positive message and encourage people because they would see that, you know, they can have some effects and things can happen as a consequence of them being

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involved…I think that would really help. And then there are the kind of technical things like providing resources to campaigners that could help…I don’t imagine that would ever happen, because I think it’s quite a controversial suggestion, but I think if they were more open to that, it could improve…and, again, just making people more aware that this exists and that they can get involved in this way. Q: It’s interesting the fact that you mentioned the EC could provide more resources to campaigners because I was actually reading a report from the European Ombudsman, I don’t know if you read it, where they were proposing the establishment of an actual office or department specially designed to support the ECI campaigners with legal advice, technical advice, or sorts of like…. A: Yes, exactly! Q: Yes…so, I don’t know, do you think that the EC would be willing to implement that? A: I doubt the EC would be willing to put too much more effort into the ECI. It would, you know, take a lot of their resources as well to provide that kind of service. I think it would be a good thing because, you know, it’s quite difficult to launch an ECI if you don’t have knowledge of all the EU law, if you’re not sure of how the whole process works or the legal implications, if you don’t know how the EU institutions work, even. That kind of thing can be quite exclusionary in terms of people who are able to launch ECIs. If there was some kind of service that could inform people about that and, you know, it could be just like some kind of helpdesk where they could ask questions and things like that, I think that would help. Q: Yes, indeed. Ok, there’s obviously a lot of room for improvement. And I don’t know, I also talked to someone from the European Citizens’ Action Service and she said that it’s very unlikely that the EC will undertake any sort of reform. It may make a few amendments in the future, but basically she said the same thing as you, that they’re not very committed.

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A: Yes, I mean I don’t know if you read the Commission’s report that was out last month… Q: Yes, I have! A: It’s kind of a review. It’s just very [N/A: connection is interrupted] Q: Yes, it’s very superficial… A: It doesn’t really add anything [N/A: connection interrupted] Yes, that’s the word, superficial, it’s a very good word to describe it. It doesn’t give the impression that they’re taking it too seriously. Continuation: small talk