EU shrugs off e-petition hijack fears
Summary: Lobbyists attempting to take advantage of European citizen e-petitions will be blocked by safeguards in the petitioning process, according to the European Commission.Public-relations firms including Bell Pottinger and Fleishman-Hillard have offered to use the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) — an e-petition programme — to lobby the European Commission on behalf of corporations, in breach of ECI rules, according to a report by the Independent on Tuesday.
Lobbyists attempting to take advantage of European citizen e-petitions will be blocked by safeguards in the petitioning process, according to the European Commission.
Public-relations firms including Bell Pottinger and Fleishman-Hillard have offered to use the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI) — an e-petition programme — to lobby the European Commission on behalf of corporations, in breach of ECI rules, according to a report by the Independent on Tuesday.
The EU has said it is prepared for lobbyists who may try to take advantage of a new citizen e-petition scheme to push their own agenda.
"We're not naive... We assumed in designing the initiative that this could be a problem," said Gravili. "We're not going to accept an invitation for a proposal from a private lobbying firm — or from the TUC, or from Greenpeace."
The ECI programme opened for signature collection on 1 April, according the ECI website. To be considered by the Commission, petitions must reach a threshold of signatories from different member states. For example, 54,000 signatures must be collected from the UK, and 74,250 must come from Germany.
Gravili said that individual citizens from at least seven different European Union member states had to form a committee to propose a petition, and that committee funding had to be transparent.
Gravili conceded that it was feasible that a lobbying firm or organisation could co-ordinate individuals in Europe to launch a petition, but said that a petition needed a million signatures to be considered by the Commission as a basis for legislation. Organisations would be unlikely to be able to mobilise a million affiliates — the sheer number of required signatories would stop niche influence of European policy, said Gravili.
"[The citizen committee] has to have full transparency about where its funding is coming from," said Gravili. "After one million signatures have been gathered, it's still for the Commission to decide whether to bring forward legislation."
The Commission will not check the affiliations of signatories, leaving organisations "somehow manag[ing] to wrangle" the launch of a petition as a feasible option, said Gravili. Nevertheless, if a petition gets a million signatures, this indicates a groundswell of support, said Gravili.
Individuals from NGOs and environmental organisations have been more active in lobbying the European Commission than PR companies, Gravili added.
"Greenpeace and NGOs are far more active than private lobbying firms," Gravili said.
Bell Pottinger and Fleishman-Hillard had not responded to a request for comment at the time of writing.
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Talkback
So what you might think? Well if I was to try and raise the profile of an issue I would find it personally very difficult without recourse to some group like Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth to co-ordinate the collection of the signatures. I have neither the resources nor the money to fund such an endeavour and because of this I am being unfairly denied a voice.
It is totally impossible to have several disparate groups acting separately collecting signatures for one issue when the next clever 'get out of jail card' the commissioners will pull out of the hat is 'Sorry but you are all different petitioners and your individual signature totals are less than 1 million so we are not going to even entertain the petition'.
So much for 54,000 signatures from Britain and 74,250 from Germany actually counting together towards a meaningful democratic outcome or for anything else for that matter.
Oh and lets not forget that the EU commissioners are unelected officials. I say until they are properly elected by the people of the individual member states of Europe they should stand down immediately without pay until they are officially elected by the people in a conclusive vote of not less than a 75% majority and not less than a 90% electorate turnout and 100% of those casting a vote. Now how about a petition on that idea anyone? :)