About us

The ECI Campaign has emerged out of the European Constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe (2002/03) in which we successfully campaigned for the legal introduction of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) – the world’s first and only tool of transnational, participatory and digital democracy.

Today we closely monitor ECI implementation and support individual ECIs with online collection software, campaigning, fundraising and legal advice. In particular we provide the only independent ECI Help Desk. The ECI Campaign works in close cooperation with partner organisations and has significantly shaped the official ECI reform process which has led to the new ECI regulation in 2020. By the end of 2018 The ECI Campaign has been awarded for its successful engagement for ECI reform as “NGO of the year” by the TGL prize.

We consist of former and ongoing ECI organizers, researchers, IT-coders and EU-lawyers who provide their expertise for the sake of democratic development in the EU. Our work is documented in numerous publications such as “An ECI that Works!”. As of 2016 the organisation also works for the procedural combination of democratic innovations and is a co-founding member of Democracy R&D, Democracy International and European Civic Forum. Moreover, we have been involved in the development of the world’s first permanently institutionalized randomly selected Citizens’ Assembly in Ostbelgien. In 2019, we co-initiated Citizens Take Over Europe, an alliance of over 70 NGOs advocating for a citizen-led Conference on the Future of Europe. Beyond our critical assessment of the Conference on the Future of Europe, we have been working on and advocating for a permanent, randomly selected citizens' assemblies at transnational level combined with the ECI.

In 2015 the Association for the European Citizens’ Initiative e.V. has emerged out of The ECI Campaign and serves as its legal base.