The European Commission has registered two new European Citizens' Initiatives — one on education and voting rights, and another on affordable housing, it said.
The initiatives are titled “All On Board - For your right to citizenship without borders” and “Right to Housing! Now and Forever”, the Commission informed on Friday.
The “All On Board” initiative calls for what organisers describe as an “all-of-society approach for a democratic Europe”, resting on education and universal suffrage.
The organisers want EU citizens to have the right to learn about European rights, values and participation in the EU, and to take part in a European exchange programme.
They also want results from academic, technical, vocational and transversal qualifications to be recognised across the EU and back home, with those types of qualifications treated equally.
What happens next
The “Right to Housing! Now and Forever” initiative calls for access to housing that organisers describe as affordable, sustainable and fair, the Commission said.
The organisers propose measures to regulate short-term rentals and vacancy, and they call for empty buildings — including vacant homes and offices — to be converted into housing.
The housing initiative also calls for “enforceable standards” to keep housing affordable and sustainable, and for an EU Housing Agency to be established.
The Commission said it has checked that both initiatives meet the formal legal conditions for registration under EU rules, but that registration does not prejudge any future decision on the substance.
The EU executive will consider what to do only if an initiative collects at least one million signatures from EU citizens.
Organisers have six months to open a 12-month period to collect signatures, and the Commission is required to respond if at least one million statements of support are gathered and minimum thresholds are met in at least seven EU member states.
European Citizens' Initiatives are a mechanism that allows citizens to invite the Commission to propose new laws in areas where it has the power to act, and 134 initiatives have been registered since the tool launched in 2012.
