Project Summary

EuroPetition - eParticipation through Petitioning in Europe

eParticipation Preparatory Action Contract No: EP-08-01-009

The 24 month EuroPetition eParticipation trial project will develop, scale-up and prove an open-source ePetitions service already in operation in the UK (Bristol, http://epetitions.bristol.gov.uk) and Sweden (Malmo, www.epet-malmo.public-i.tv:80) whilst building on a number of Web 2.0 applications proven with the eParticipation Action projects Citizenscape and LEGESE, to produce a trans-European EuroPetition service that will allow Local Authorities across the EU to facilitate ePetitions and on-line discussion groups with their citizens, thus enabling multi-lingual trans-national single issue EuroPetitions to be launched, managed and submitted from multiple sources. The project will Pilot Trial the coordination and submission of 5 cross-border EuroPetitions to the European Parliament’s PETI Petitions Committee and one pan-European “Citizens Initiative” EuroPetition from 5 regions in ES, IT, NL, SE, UK that directly involve over 4.9 million citizens across the EU. Specifically the project will

• Provide a local ePetitioning facility for Local Authorities to facilitate on-line petitions from their communities on local issues.
• Have an embedded workflow which supports the petitioner in ‘marketing’ the petition as well as providing viral tools (such as Facebook widgets) to help increase participation and signing across regions.
• Have a process for engaging signatories in discussion around the petition topic, thus retaining the interaction between the citizen and their local authority / EU.
• Provide the EuroPetition trans-European Local Authority service enabling regional citizen engagement and interaction with the European Parliament’s PETI Petitions Committee and the coordination of a pan-European Citizens Initiative EuroPetition to the Commission.
• Enable Citizens to launch and manage EuroPetitions on specific EU issues.
• Enable Local Authorities to support and moderate EuroPetitions with on-line discussions using Web 2.0 proven tools either on a local basis or through regional clusters potentially leading to a multiple lingual discussion to gain cross-border support on a single issue.
• Provide simple EU jargon buster facilities to support citizens in understanding the issues both during the discussions and in launching a petition.
• Provide explanatory videos and content to explain the process and purpose of petitioning to EU citizens

As EuroPetition will be used in a number of cross-border decision-making cases it will be relevant in promoting eParticipation not only in the context of the Lisbon Treaty but also in many legislative and decision-making processes.

The benefits of this eParticipation will be felt by the wider community. EuroPetition will include social networking technologies and practices to add to the power and utility of the service when used in a political context. Online collaboration sites have been successful in recent years, especially among the young. So EuroPetition will include various tools to enable people with the same interests to form groups which transverse social, administrative or geographic barriers, and help these groups to participate in decision-making on specific EU policies, using innovative ICT tools and applications.