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This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the PETI Committee, analyses the impact of digitalization on vulnerable social groups in terms of lower income and education, age, people affected by disabilities, minority ethnic groups and people living in remote/isolated geographic areas. It includes a review of the relevant academic literature, secondary data analysis, as well as three case studies focused ...

The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) is an important instrument of participatory democracy in the EU, allowing one million citizens residing in one quarter of the Member States to invite the Commission to submit a proposal for a legal act to implement the EU Treaties. Since the application of a 2011 Regulation establishing detailed procedures for the ECI, ten initiatives have been successfully submitted to the Commission. As of January 2020, new rules apply to make the ECI more accessible.

Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht, every EU citizen and all natural or legal persons residing in the Member States have had the right to submit a petition to the European Parliament, in the form of a complaint or a request on an issue that falls within the European Union’s fields of activity. Petitions are examined by Parliament’s Committee on Petitions, which takes a decision on their admissibility and is responsible for dealing with them.

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the AFCO Committee, assesses the status of political strikes in the EU. While workers' strikes generally seek to pressure an employer, "political strikes" are aimed at the government. Even though such political strikes are often organised to defend and protect workers' interests, they can also have exclusively political objectives. Such "purely political" strikes ...

This study, commissioned by the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Petitions (PETI), demonstrates the need to change systems that respond to homelessness as an issue of individual dysfunction and inadequacy, to systems that end homelessness. The residential instability felt by the majority of those who are homeless needs to be addressed through the provision of integrated housing, welfare, and health services. Public policy should ...

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the PETI Committee, discusses the impact of the ongoing cost-of-living and energy crises on the standard of living for persons with disabilities. Based on available evidence, it provides an overview on legislation, policy measures and schemes that support persons with disabilities and their families to cope with the rising cost of living at the EU level and in ...

The need for effective communication has a legal basis in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (the Charter), which guarantees the right of all citizens to be informed about EU issues. The EU institutions have developed several tools and services to stay in contact with and inform the public. Since its formal launch in 2012, the European Citizens’ Initiative has allowed citizens to become more directly involved in new legislation and EU issues.

This Briefing, written by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Petitions (PETI), provides background information for the PETI Fact-finding visit to Donegal, Ireland, scheduled from 30 October to 1 November 2023. It investigates the issue of petitions 0789/2021, 0790/2021, 0799/2021, 0800/2021, 0801/2021, 0813/2021, 0814/2021 and 0837/2021 which raise concerns about the defective quality of certain building ...

This study, commissioned by the European Parliament's Policy Department for Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the Committee on Petitions (PETI), provides an overview of the right to petition and the rules, procedures and practices used by parliaments for handling petitions, notably in terms of the submission of petitions, admissibility criteria, powers of consideration and criteria for closing petitions. The study also discusses publicity and feedback provided by petitions ...