The European Citizens’ Initiative – A More Democratic Union? The Case of the 'Stop Vivisection' Campaign

As part of the efforts to democratize the European Union, the Treaty of Lisbon introduced the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). The ECI requires the signature of one million EU citizens from at least one quarter of the member states for a proposal of legislative action to the European Commission. Although there has been both public and scientific attention for this new direct democratic instrument, we lack empirical studies of its use, which are especially necessary given the significance of the discussion on the “democratic deficit” of the EU. In this paper, I study the “Stop Vivisection” initiative. Its organizers submitted 1,173,130 signatures of EU citizens in March 2015 and the initiative became one of only three to successfully collect the required amount of signatures, although so far around thirty have tried to do so. The aim of “Stop Vivisection” was “to abrogate directive 2010/63/EU on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes and to present a new proposal that does away with animal experimentation” – one of the main demands of the animal rights movement. Ultimately, the Commission did not decide to push the agenda of “Stop Vivisection” forward – the activists failed to have their desired policy impact. I aim to answer the following questions: Who were the organizations and people behind the initiative and how did they develop the idea of starting an ECI? Why were they able to successfully collect the required number of signatures and which were their strongholds? How did the hearing in Brussels proceed and what was the response of the Commission? Finally, was the strategy of the initiators appropriate to achieve their political aim or was the ECI a dead end? In order to discuss these questions I rely on empirical data such as qualitative interviews with people involved and official EU data on ECI supporters. For comparison, I discuss the “Right2Water” campaign as a shadow case – another initiative that managed to successfully mobilize. The paper shows that ultimately, the ECI is a toothless instrument similar to many other non-binding initiatives on the national level: unless the cause is supported by powerful political players, there is no public pressure for the European Commission to act. The successful mobilization of supporters was certainly not a sign of weakness of the campaigners and was part of their attempts to trigger a broader public discussion on animal experimentation. However, for outsiders of a specific “policy network”, focusing on a political issue of low salience to the public, such as the “Stop Vivisection” campaigners, the possibility to propose legislation to the European Commission does not seem to be a promising instrument to pursue political aims.