The organisers of this European Citizens' Initiative state that 'the EU should pay special attention to regions with national, ethnic, cultural, religious or linguistic characteristics that are different from those of the surrounding regions'. Therefore, the organisers call on the Commission to provide an 'equal opportunity [for the regions] to access various EU funds (…) so that the EU's development can be sustained and its cultural diversity maintained'.
Under the EU Treaties, the European Commission can make proposals for legal acts defining the tasks, priority objectives and the organisation of EU Structural Funds. The Commission clarified that statements of support for this initiative may be collected, based on the understanding that they concern legal action on the tasks, priority objectives and the organisation of EU Structural Funds and provided that the actions to be financed lead to the strengthening of the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the Union. On this basis, the Commission considers the initiative legally admissible and decided to register it.
