Such an approach could lead to confusion, giving the impression that the Commission had given some form of green light to proposed initiatives on more than purely procedural grounds.

The obvious solution is that the admissibility check should not be conducted by the Commission itself. For example, like in several EU member countries, some court or a special election authority could do it.

[Migeru] Say, after a petition achieves 100 thousand signatures by some "informal method" the Commission provides legal advice and centralizes signature collection?

If you collected 100,000 signatures and the legal advice forces a change in the text, you'll have to re-do those 100,000 signatures.

[nanne] ...only the currently already networked civil society and lobbies will be able to use the instrument (or rich folks who'd want to waste some money). Those folks will have a legal affairs department look at it before they launch anything.

I am sceptical on that. And some of the networked lobbies and civil society would be very much capable of launching an inflammatory petition even if they know of legal problems (say, what about a pro-death-penalty one?)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}