Jon Bright (London, OK): One of the interesting aspects of the new EU treaty is the institution of citizens' initiatives and petitions - of which Grahnlaw has an excellent and detailed dissection here. Initiatives with the support of at least 1 million EU citizens can be submitted to the European Commission, which can then turn them into proposals.
Before getting too excited (if this is the kind of thing that excites you), there are two things to bear in mind. First, the minimum number of member states they must come from has, as far as I can tell, not yet been decided - but by implication it will be more than one. Anyone wanting a successful petition must therefore have the resources and willpower to campaign in several different countries and languages, over a period of time sustained enough to build up the vast amount of signatures required (the comparative ease of building an internet petition notwithstanding).
Secondly, perhaps more importantly, there are limits to what can be campaigned on. Defence and security are (unsurprisingly) off the list - somewhere the EU has relatively minimal power anyway. And EU "constitutional" changes are also beyond the power of these intiatives - we will not be empowered to alter the way the EU is set up. As Grahn notes, therefore, Jon Worth's whodoicall campaign for an elected president of the EU (which is something I am completely behind) will be unable to turn itself into such an initiative.
So what will the impact of this democratic mechanism be? Perhaps nothing. Indeed, it seems like those drafting it have gone out of their way to make it "safe" for the EU - as Grahn argues, it's a little bit like a playpen where we can practice democracy. But it's still possible to imagine a dedicated campaigning group - perhaps in an environmental area or something else that arouses strong passions - getting the amount of signatures required to make a difference, and one can imagine the press attention such an EU wide petition would receive.
One of the interesting things about democratic reform is that, once certain avenues of power are "opened" to popular participation, they can be used in changing and unpredictable ways - witness the enormous road pricing petition that stemmed from the government opening its e-petitions site. As Hugo Robinson wrote last week, the latest EU treaty is flexible - many things seem undecided, or are slated to be worked through later. It seems to me just possible that a mechanism like this, even one that was not intended to achieve that much in terms of transfer of power, might end up being a fissure through which a little democracy can be driven into the heart of the EU. I await the first million person petition with interest.
