EU’s ‘Take The Initiative’ campaign reaches Romania

European citizens are getting more and more involved in shaping European policy. Throughout 2018 and up until today, 12 citizens’ initiatives have been launched, and many others are in the pipeline. The past 12 months have been one of the most successful periods so far for the European Citizens’ Initiative showing a strong interest from European citizens to have their say in the decision-making process and in the future of Europe.

The European Citizens’ Initiative is a tool of participatory democracy, giving European citizens the power to shape their future. It enables citizens to submit ideas in areas where the European Commission has power to propose legislation or to implement actions such as the environment, agriculture, education or civil rights.

In order to make the tool more user-friendly and more widely used, in line with the European Commission’s priority for citizen-powered democracy and grass-roots citizens actions, in December 2018 the European Parliament and the Council agreed to revise the European Citizens’ Initiative in order to simplify the process, provide more support for initiative organisers and encourage even more citizens to take advantage of the tool.

As part of these efforts, the European Citizens’ Initiative went on the road with the campaign Take The Initiative in 2018 and has since reached more than 10 million people. After visiting Bulgaria, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Austria, Malta and the Netherlands, the Roadshow is coming to Romania.

The European Citizens’ Initiative workshop, taking place at the Hotel Continental in Timisoara, Romania on the 18 April 2019, will gather like-minded NGOs, citizens, businesses, academics and Europe Direct Information Centres to discuss the role of the European Citizens’ Initiative and all EU citizens in making decisions about the future of Europe. It will be in English and Romanian with simultaneous interpretation.

Check out the full agenda and register.

The workshop is organised in parallel to the event hosted by the European Commission Representation at the National Theatre and Opera House Timisoara: “What’s up EU?” focusing on EU citizens’ democratic participation.