Citizens’ groups push for increased EU role

Date: 14/03/1996

EU governments are facing increasing demands for a general legal commitment in the revised Maastricht Treaty which would open the door to systematic contacts between citizens, their organisations and Union institutions.

The call to give citizens' associations similar status to that enjoyed by trade unions and employers comes as preparations are being finalised for the Intergovernmental Conference.

Tony Venables, the director of the Brussels-based Euro Citizen Action Service (ECAS), argues: “The treaty is primarily economic and social. For instance, it gives right of establishment to workers, commercial enterprises and the self-employed, but the non-profit sector is excluded from the treaty. Employers and workers discussed the recent parental leave measures, but other groups with direct interests were not consulted.”

The push by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and citizens' associations for more direct involvement in

EU business is emerging as member state governments and the major institutions try to counter public hostility to the Union by giving citizens' rights a prominent place in the new treaty.

Venables believes that the current debate, with its emphasis on civil society and the ability of individual groups to make themselves heard, is very different from the discussions on individual rights - such as the freedom to vote in another member state - which preceded agreement on the Maastricht Treaty in 1991. “Maastricht simply extended portable rights and non-discrimination between Community nationals living and working in other countries. It still kept some restrictions which we want to get rid of. But we now want to go further and have an impact on the rights of people in their domestic environment as well,” he explains.

ECAS is drafting a blueprint for a specific chapter on EU citizenship in the new treaty and intends to canvas public opinion on citizens' rights via a telephone hot line it has already deployed to record individual experiences in the single market.

As well as calling for up to a dozen specific rights to be clearly acknowledged in the EU treaties, it is seeking treaty recognition of the ability of citizens to defend their interests by establishing European associations and foundations which would have the clear right to represent their views to EU institutions.

Opinions already tabled by governments and Union institutions recognise the need to highlight the elements of EU citizenship, although they fail to go as far as the NGOs would like.

The European Commission sees the target of bringing the Union closer to its citizens as the first of the IGC's three objectives. “Ordinary people must feel actively involved,” the Commission stresses in its IGC opinion. Similar sentiments have been expressed by the European Parliament and in the Reflection Group.