Regulation 2020/1042 - Temporary measures concerning the time limits for the collection, the verification and the examination stages provided for in Regulation (EU) 2019/788 on the European citizens’ initiative in view of the COVID-19 outbreak - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 231/7

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 outbreak had become a worldwide pandemic. The Member States have been affected in a dramatic and exceptional way by the consequences of that pandemic. They have taken a series of restrictive measures to stop or slow down the transmission of COVID-19, including lockdown measures to restrict the free movement of their citizens, the prohibition of public events, and the closure of shops, restaurants and schools. Those measures have led to a standstill of public life in almost all Member States.

The measures taken by the Member States have inevitably also had a serious impact on the European citizens’ initiative. For European citizens’ initiatives (‘initiatives’) to be valid, Regulation (EU) 2019/788 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2) requires the organisers to collect at least 1 million statements of support in at least one quarter of the Member States within a period of 12 months. The collection of statements of support in paper form, local campaigning and the organisation of public events, which are of significant importance for a successful initiative, have become substantially more difficult because of the measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Member States and the Union institutions also have certain legal obligations under Regulation (EU) 2019/788. Those obligations are subject to strict time limits from which Regulation (EU) 2019/788 does not allow any derogations.

The Treaty on European Union grants citizens of the Union the right to approach the Commission with a request inviting it to submit a proposal for a legal act of the Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties. The European citizens’ initiative is one of the main instruments for citizens of the Union to engage in an easy and accessible way in the democratic and political debate about the Union and to put issues that matter to them on the agenda of the Union.

In the current exceptional circumstances and in particular because of the measures taken by the Member States in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, temporary measures are necessary to preserve the effectiveness of the European citizens’ initiative as an instrument, and to provide legal certainty regarding possible extensions of the applicable time limits.

Member States have indicated that, in order to be able to continue to monitor and control the public health situation, they will only gradually reduce the level of restrictions introduced by the measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore appropriate to extend the period for the collection of statements of support by six months, covering the period from 11 March 2020, when the World Health Organization announced that the COVID-19 outbreak had become a pandemic. That extension is based on the assumption that at least during the first six months from 11 March 2020 at least a quarter of Member States or a number of Member States representing more than 35 % of the...