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In every European country, the national constitution
sets out procedures whereby draft laws are proposed by the government
and approved by the national parliament. In some countries, such as
Italy or Switzerland, there is another route by which a political
idea can become a law: if a petition is signed by enough citizens,
it can be put directly to a popular referendum without going through
the normal parliamentary process. Advocates of this system argue that
it encourages popular participation in democracy, which is especially
necessary given that turnouts in elections are in a long-term decline.
The constitutional treaty includes a provision
of this sort, but with a fundamental difference. As with the traditional
model of citizens' initiative, the starting point will be a petition.
A threshold of one million signatures has been set as the minimum
number any petition must achieve (in Italy, it is 100,000, in Switzerland,
it is 50,000). Rules might be set in due course specifying any minimum
geographical distribution or other conditions that must be respected
by those million signatures.
The difference is that the result of a million
signatures will not automatically be a referendum but rather a request
to the European Commission to propose a law. That proposal will
then proceed through the normal legislative procedure, in the same
way as any other proposed law. Article I-47 therefore respects the
principle that the Commission, which is the guardian of the common
European interest, has the monopoly on the right to propose legislation,
and it also maintains the careful balance between the different
institutions and between the different member states. However, respecting
that principle and those balances, it creates new opportunities
for citizens to participate in the democratic life of the European
Union.
This commentary was contributed by Richard
Laming, member of the Federal Union committee, on 22 October 2006.
He may be contacted at richard@richardlaming.com.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and not necessarily
those of Federal Union.
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