As I noted, the test of admissibility is rather expansive. Nonetheless there isn't anything in the treaties that says the Commission would be obliged to adopt an initiative. There is also nothing saying it isn't obliged.

From the wording of the green paper, I'd say the Commission doesn't see itself as obliged to adopt an admisible initiative - it only sees itself as required to give a reasoned response.

I checked the link:
Texts adopted - Thursday, 7 May 2009 - Implementation of the citizens' initiative - P6_TA-PROV(2009)0389

6.  The second stage of the citizen's initiative covers the collecting of individual statements of support for the successfully registered initiative and official confirmation by the Member States of the result of the collection of individual statements of support. Its main features are as follows:

(a)  The Member States make provision for an effective procedure for the collection of lawful statements of support for a citizens" initiative and for official confirmation of the result of that collection.

(b)  A statement of support is lawful if is declared within the period for collecting statements of support in accordance with the relevant legal provisions of the Member State in question and of EU law. The period for collecting statements of support is one year. It begins on the first day of the third month following the decision on registration of the citizens" initiative.

(c)  All supporting persons must individually state their support, as a rule by means of a personal signature provided in writing or, if appropriate, electronically. The statement must as a minimum show the name, date of birth, home address and nationality of the supporting person. People who have more than one nationality shall indicate only one, which they choose freely.

The personal data is subject to data protection requirements, for which the citizens" initiative's organisers are held accountable.

(d)  Support for a citizens" initiative may be stated only once. Every statement of support contains a separate solemn declaration by the supporting person that they have not previously stated their support for the same citizens" initiative.

(e)  Any statement of support may be withdrawn before the period for the collection of statements of support expires. The supporting statement is then considered not to have been made. The organisers must inform every supporting person of this option. Every statement of support by the supporting person must contain a separate declaration that they have been informed of this option.

(f)  Every supporting person receives a copy of their statement of support from the organisers together with a copy of their solemn declaration and their declaration that they have taken note of the withdrawal option.

(g)  Within two months and after verifying the details of the statements of support, the Member States shall provide the organisers of citizens" initiatives with official confirmation of the number of lawful statements of support, listed by nationality of the supporting persons. They shall take appropriate steps to ensure that every statement of support is confirmed only once by one of the Member States and that multiple confirmations by different Member States or different agencies of the same Member State are effectively prevented.

The personal data is subject to data protection requirements, for which the relevant authorities of the Member States are held accountable.

Citizens' initiative

Jacek Protasiewicz (EPP, PL) asked Ms Reding how she intends to make the new right of citizens' initiative work. She replied that the conditions under which this initiative can operate would first have to be "clarified". For example, a citizens' initiative to introduce the death penalty would be precluded, because it would run counter to EU values.

The minimum Commission response to an ECI should therefore be a formal discussion, vote and decision to reject/amend/adopt and with a reasoned opinion as to why it was accepted/amended/rejected.  E.g. a proposal to outlaw abortion is rejected because it is incompatible with the Charter for Fundamental rights section xyz.

notes from no w here

The Commission notes that the current number of EU citizens is just below 500 million, and that accordingly, a 0.2% threshold would be the proportional number per Member State.

I basically would not have a huge problem with a requirement of 1/3rd of the Member States and 0.2% of the population per Member State, since at that level it would be practically difficult for a single Member State to dominate the list of signatories.

Alternatively, though, we can see that the largest current Member State, Germany, has about 1/6th of the population. So I could also see a requirement of 0.1% per Member State coupled to a requirement that no single Member State provides more than, say, 1/5th (20%) of the signatories required for the threshold.

Are sigs collected by different organisations additive?  Do all of the organisations pro/anti have to be campaigning on an identical and detailed carbon tax proposal?

How are opposing ECIs on the same issues reconciled?  Does one automatically cancel out another?  E.g. If ECIs in all fishing nations propose mandatory minimum fishing quotas, and all non fishing members oppose minimum fish quotas?  Or Catholic countries support ECI's against abortion and protestant/secular countries oppose?

notes from no w here

HOW THE EUROPEAN UNION WORKS

C.  Entitlement to vote

1.  Vote of non-nationals in the host country

Voting age is 18 in all the Member States.

I take it the age is set on EU level? Then I think it is appropriate to tie these two together. Unless one wants to use this as an opportunity to push it downwards, then 16 is probably a good suggestion.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

a) Under which power and procedure legislation should be initiated
b) How the act would implement the objectives set out in the treaties with regard to that power

Because these are formal requirements for admissibility. A statement on subsidiarity should also be included.

The Commission states the following:

All Member States have procedures and mechanisms for the verification of electors and a large number of them already have verification and authentication procedures for national citizens' initiatives. These verification and authentication procedures vary considerably, however, from one Member State to the other: some Member States have rather strict requirements in place as regards collection procedures. These include for instance requirements that citizens may only sign initiatives in officially designated centers, or that a public official or a notary must be present to authenticate all signatures at the time of collection, or requiring that a certificate of voter registration be issued for each signatory. Other Member States, on the other hand, have lighter systems in place, which do not impose any specific requirements for the collection of signatures but generally require ex-post verification of the signatures collected by the authorities, both in order to check the validity of the signatures and to verify the number of signatures collected.

Specific procedures for expat votes: a system to verify that one citizen has one signature, of course.

Online support: hard to verify and undemocratic when verified with f.e. credit cards, a definite no.

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

Under this heading, though, the Commission also discusses the question of whether it should check admissibility. It does not deem an ex-ante admissibility check appropriate, because, to quote:

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. It would require checks to be made which would delay the moment from which signatures could be collected. Moreover, the admissibility and substance of initiatives cannot be seen in isolation and thus it would not be appropriate at the early stage of registration to undertake this examination.

The Commission understands that there may be some reluctance to launching an initiative across the EU, with the risk that it may ultimately be rejected on the grounds that it is not admissible. However it should be noted that the admissibility criterion - that the proposal on which the Commission is invited to act should be within the framework of its powers - is sufficiently clear and is known at EU level. In any event, organizers can normally be expected to have fully assessed whether the initiative legally falls within the framework of the Commission's powers before launching an initiative.

(the treaties also include objectives for policy areas, like agriculture or environment which broadly outline to which ends the powers attributed to the EU are to be used)

In Colman's story we already discussed this issue. Migeru noted:

This whole citizen initiative process will backfire on the EU if the first few attempts which are successful in collecting 1 million signatures are then dismissed on the grounds that they ask for things that the Commission cannot do according to the treaties.

They need a process for pre-approval or something. An advice service.

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

I don't think so. As Frank indicates, it will take a lot of organising power in order to get such an initiative off the ground as I expect some difficult distribution among the 27 Member States, only certified written signatures allowed, etcetera. This means that 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 think the Commission should use its registry to also provide information on the requirements for admissibility, and, just as important, on the national requirements for the collection of signatures. I don't think they should set up a dedicated service that gives legal advice or centralises signature collection.

A much lower threshold should apply to have the right to solicit the opinion of that bureau (say a request by citizens from at least 4 countries and 1,000 signatures).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

To limit the cost and frequency of proposals for ECI's the Commission could ask the ECJ or its legal office to give a "preliminary finding" on the admissibility of any ECI's which meet a much lower threshold - similar as already suggested - to a few thousand sigs or refundable Euros - which would effectively constitute a lower initial threshold before a putative ECI is registered on a central database.

notes from no w here