Team & Members
The ECI Campaign (ECI e.V.) is powered by a team of multi-talented citizens, some of whom have run their own ECI campaigns. You’ll see us speaking at events and commenting in the media. Behind the scenes, we research, lobby, write, code, advice ECI organizers and do whatever we can to improve the ECI and make EU democracy work.
Board
Dr. Carsten Berg
successfully advocated for the inclusion of the ECI in EU primary law during the Constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe (2002-03). Today, he advises ECIs via the ECI Help Desk, and works on the entire field of democratic innovations, including citizens' assemblies, constitutional conventions, and direct voting processes. He earned a PhD on transnational participatory democracy, held roles in the European Parliament supporting the development of the ECI regulations, and conducted research at the European University Institute (EUI) as Berggruen Fellow. Moreover, he has served as an expert to several high-level initiatives, including the European Commission’s Competence Centre on Participatory and Deliberative Democracy, and the expert group behind the Ostbelgien Model — the world’s first permanent Citizens' Assembly selected by lottery.
Simona Pronckutė
is co-initiator of the first-ever registered ECI Fraternité 2020 and has worked for diverse organizations including the European Policy Center and VoteWatch Europe. She has written extensively on participatory democracy and youth-related issues and acts as an external expert to ongoing ECIs and EU institutions.
Xavier Dutoit
is the most experienced IT-engineer in the field of ECI and creates the technology civil society needs to make participatory democracy work. He coded our openECI software for ECI online collection and managed the IT behind the successful ECIs Right2Water, ECI Ban Glyphosat, Free Fur Europe and numerous other ECIs.
Members
Prisca Merz
is our financial auditor. She initiated the ECI “End Ecocide in Europe” and led the team from 2012-2015. She then joined The ECI Campaign to share her knowledge with other campaigners. Prisca has worked on European issues in various roles, including as Senior International Relations Officer at Imperial College London and for the European Students Forum AEGEE.
Maarten de Groot
is a decolonial activist. He was Campaign Coordinator for The ECI Campaign in 2017-2018, the time of the legislative revision of the ECI. Since then, he's continued to work in the field of transnational democracy in various capacities. As of 2024, he's provided communications support for The ECI Campaign.
Dr. James Organ
is a lecturer in EU Law at the School of Law & Social Justice at the University of Liverpool and has published widely on democratic innovations including sortition. James has written his PhD on the ECI and direct democracy. Today he helps ECIs with legal matters.
Dr. Paweł Glogowski
has written his PhD on the ECI and participatory democracy at the Willy Brandt Center (WBZ) for German and European Studies. Before joining The ECI Campaign he worked as a trainee in the Brussels office of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Mumta Ito
is a lawyer and organiser for future ECI Rights of Nature. She is the Founder and CEO of Rights of Nature Europe, a registered charity and network of individuals, experts and organisations working together proactively to establish rights of nature in law throughout Europe and transform our societal relationship with nature.
Stanislas Jourdan
has been the leading activist for the ECI “Unconditional Basic Income”, a one-year campaign that started in 2013 and which succeeded – with very little resources – in collecting 300,000 signatures in support of the idea of basic income. Today he is executive director of Positive Money Europe and campaigning for quantitative easing.
Thomas Eitzenberger
is an IT-engineer co-initiated the ECI Actions on Climate Emergency with Fridays for Future. Previously he has been the IT specialist for ECI End Ecocide and co-implementer of OpenECI software. Thomas helps various ECIs to make their IT-part work.
Jerry Weyer
has campaigned in the ECIs: “Let me vote” and “Unconditional Basic Income”. He served as the coordinator of the Luxembourgian parliamentary monitoring organisation, Politikercheck.lu. Today he runs Clement & Weyer Digital Communication Consultants in Luxembourg.
Daniel Schily
advices ECIs in the ECI Forum. He has run several citizens’ initiatives for more participatory democracy at regional and national level. Co-founder of The ECI Campaign, Democracy International and Mehr Demokratie.
Ivo Mechtel
is a political scientist and has worked on democratic innovations around the world and advices The ECI Campaign on questions related to the “Future of Europe” debate.
Virginia Fiume
is coordinator of the ECI “Respect for the rule of law within the European Union” and manages the Council for Participatory Democracy for EUmans.
Réka Heszterényi
is a practitioner and researcher of European democracy and youth empowerment. She wrote her capstone project for the Master in Transnational Governance (EUI/STG) together with The ECI Campaign. Since November 2024, she is The ECI Campaign's Social Media Manager.
