European Parliament hosted event in Edinburgh on the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI)

I was invited to speak alongside the Mr P Nikiforos Diamandouros the EU Ombudsman, Frank McAveety the convener of the Scottish Parliament's Petitition Committee, and Prof Jo Shaw, an expert on EU constitutional issues and citizenship at Edinburgh University.

I started by covering the EuroPetition project as an example of a lightweight approach to the problem. I then compared ECIs and petitions, pointing out the similarities but also the differences - eg in terms of the formality of the processes, and the increased importance of the to validating the signatures. I coucluded by running through the issues that are distinctive to an EU level process like the ECI - such as language, the need for a federated model and the importance of compliance with differing privacy laws.

More can be found at my blog here.