Committee of Experts on the European Citizens' Initiative

Committee of Experts on the European Citizens' Initiative – update meeting of the 22nd November 2016

The Expert Group on the Citizens’ Initiative met on the 22nd November, 2016 at the Albert Borschette Center in Brussels. The meeting was attended by fifteen member states, observers and representatives from private companies. The conference was chaired by Ms Carmen Preising. In her opening speech she mentioned that for the first time a budget line has been assigned for the ECI. The budget for 2017 has been set to 840,000 Euro

The agenda covered the latest developments around the ECI, the recent judgements of the General Court on the admissibility of proposed initiatives and a review of the ECI. The final agenda item covered a presentation of the intended Commission Studies on ECI. Three studies will be undertaken by the Commission, these include (a) Study on data requirements for the ECI, (b) Study on the use of Electronic Identification (eID) for the ECI and (c) Study on improvements to the technical specifications for online collection systems.
 The three contracted companies gave a presentation of the way that the studies are going to be carried out. The studies will include the participation of the member states through questionnaires and workshops in the coming months.

Malta was represented by Mr George Saliba, Secretary to the Electoral Commission and Mr Michael R. Borg from the Electoral Commission IT section.