On 1 June 2022 the Commission registered a European citizens' initiative entitled ‘Good Clothes, Fair pay’. It calls on the Commission to propose legislation requiring undertakings active in the garment and footwear sector to conduct due diligence in respect of living wages in their supply chains.

This is the fourth initiative registered in 2022 and 90th since the start of the ECI in 2012. Its organisers have six months now to choose the moment to start the collection of support.

The 2022 edition of the ECI Day, organised by the European Economic and Social Committee and its partners, will focus on the theme "European Citizens' Initiative 10 years on: ready for the future?". It will be attended by the Vice-President of the European Commission for Democracy and Demography, Dubravka Šuica.

As part of the event, a workshop on the Central Online Collection System (COCS) will be organised by the European Commission with the support of the ECI Forum. It aims to collect feedback from users and stakeholders for the continuous improvement of the system.

The event will be hybrid, with participation in person in Brussels or online. Registration is open until 25 May

Taking the initiative matters! Discover how to make a difference with the European Citizens’ Initiative.

Watch the recording of the webinar to find out about this unique participatory democracy tool and listen to people who have started initiatives and experts.

Staff from the European Commission and the ECI Forum gave an overview of the European Citizens’ Initiative, focusing on recent improvements and the different ways people can get involved. People who have decided to start European citizens’ initiatives shared their experience and explained why they chose to use the ECI for their cause and what impact they have reached so far.

The webinar was organised on 3 May 2022. Follow the link below to watch its recording.

On 27 April 2022 the Commission decided to register the third European Citizens' Initiative of 2022, entitled ‘End The Slaughter Age’.

The initiative calls on the Commission to exclude livestock farming from activities eligible for agricultural subsidies and to include ethical and ecological alternatives, such as cell farming and plant proteins, and to introduce incentives for the production and sale of plant-based and cellular agricultural products.

The initiative's organisers have six months now to chose the moment to start the collection of support.

In 2022 the European Citizens’ Initiative celebrates its 10th Anniversary, and in the ‘ECI @10: new initiatives and fond memories’ chapter of the CitizenCentral podcast you can meet organisers from the past, present and (potentially) future - Simona Pronckutė, Dr Julia Baines and Virginia Fiume – representing ‘Fraternité 2020 - Mobility. Progress. Europe.’, ‘Save Cruelty Free Cosmetics’ and ‘Stop Global Warming – a price for carbon to fight climate change’.

The episode on ‘Vaccines and copyright - meet the Europeans fighting for changes in EU policies’ features the ‘Freedom to Share’ and ‘Right to Cure’ initiatives and intellectual property rights specialists.

Tune in and discover CitizenCentral (in English only) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and SoundCloud.

On 16 March 2022 the Commission registered a European citizens' initiative entitled ‘Fur Free Europe’. It calls on the Commission to introduce an EU-wide ban on keeping and killing of animals for the purpose of fur production, and to introduce the same ban on placing such fur and products containing such fur on the EU market.

This is the second initiative registered in 2022. Its organisers have six months now to chose the moment to start the collection of support.

During the European Year of Youth, the ECI Forum will connect with young Europeans!

In the spring of 2022, the ECI Forum explains the basics on the European Citizens' initiative and the opportunities provided by the Forum. The first sessions are offered to students of the Babes-Bolyai University (Romania), University of Wroclaw (Poland), Leiden University (Netherlands), and Universidade Lusófona (Portugal).

On 2 February 2022 the Commission registered a European citizens' initiative entitled ‘Win It On The Pitch’. Its organisers of the initiative call on the Commission to protect the European model of sport, which is based on values, solidarity, sustainability and open competition.

This is the first initiative registered in 2022, and the 17th initiative since the new rules on the European citizens’ initiative started to apply on 1 January 2020. Its organisers have six months now to chose the moment to start the collection of support.

New or updated communication materials explaining the European Citizens’ Initiative have been uploaded on the ‘Spread the Word’ page.

Factsheets, social media posts, visuals, videos and more are ready for reuse in 24 languages.

A new version of the ECI Central Online Collection System (COCS) application has been released recently. It includes the brand-new EU Captcha (security module for checking whether the user is human) which is open source, multilingual and GDPR-compliant.
The new COCS also offers initiative organisers detailed statistics on the use of the system for the collection of signatures. The majority of open initiatives use COCS, and all new initiatives registered from 1 January 2023 will be required to use it.