Citizens in Charge

The first petition submitted to the EU Commission under the new European Citizen’s Initiative process has been rejected by officials on procedural grounds. Signed by 1.03 million voters, the petition would have banned genetically modified - also known as GM -foods until they have been scientifically tested for safety and sustainability.

While the citizen’s initiative process was called for in the Lisbon Treaty, formal regulations have not been created yet, so officials say they cannot accept the petition as a citizen’s initiative. Instead it will be treated as a simple petition, which confers no legal requirements on lawmakers to act. According to Reuters, officials claim it will be treated as a petition “in the spirit of the citizen’s initiative.”

One interesting note is that the 26 U.S. states that recognize initiative petition rights the laws are already created and clearly spelled out, and yet petitions are still often rejected based on arbitrary and capricious interpretations of law or even seemingly out of spite.

Hopefully for Europeans,  the EU petition rejection is is just a sign of growing pains and not a harbinger of rejections to come.