Today is Europe Day. Seventy-one years ago, on May 9, 1950, Robert Schuman presented the economic cooperation plan, conceived by Jean Monnet, which marked the beginning of the European integration process, which would lead to the Czech (European Coal and Steel Community) , then to the EEC, and finally to an ever more numerous Union of States, with the single currency (for the majority of them) starting from 2001. The date of our community origins also coincides with the day that actually marks the end of the World War II, after the Nazi capitulation.
But despite the EU being the protagonist, now more than ever, of our daily lives – we saw this with the vaccine case – many bureaucratic mechanisms and participation tools are very little known. One of these is the Ice, the European citizens’ initiative to promote proposals that affect EU policies. A kind of popular initiative law, in a European key. Only three out of 100 Italians are aware of the existence of the Ice, as revealed by a YouGov survey, commissioned for Italy by Eumans !, the pan-European movement founded by Marco Cappato and promoter of StopGlobalWarming.ue. Most of these are between 45 and 54 years old and come from Sicily or Sardinia. The least prepared age group in this regard is that of over 55s: only 11% were able to say what it is, while the North East of the country (10%) recorded the lowest number of correct answers on the definition. by Ice. Center and South are equal, with 16% of people informed.
Since 2012, the European Union has made this instrument of participatory democracy available to all citizens, thanks to which one million citizens residing in a quarter of the Member States can invite the Commission to present a proposal for a legal act for the purpose of implementing the treaties. EU. In order to be examined by the Commission, the ICE must collect one million statements of support within 12 months. Eumans took advantage of this right to put forward the proposal for a European carbon tax: “Stopglobalwarming” is the name of the proposal, it has collected 50,000 signatures so far, the date to reach one million is 22 July.