Backstage: Why send a petition?
118 views · Published 13 November 2012 · 3:35 · Indexed 16 October 2026
Channel: European Parliament · 2012 · News & Politics
Hi! The European Parliament represents EU citizens and listens to them too. Beside me are some petitioners, nothing worse. They've just sent a petition to the Parliament on a subject they care about and they've been invited to explain it to MEPs. Yes! All EU citizens and residents can appeal directly to MEPs. They just have to send in a petition on their own or as a group. It's a complaint or a request written and signed by one or more people. The subject must affect them personally and it must concern the European Union. The petition can be sent in by post or online, as they like. This is where all the files end up, the office of the secretary of the Petitions Committee. That's a lot of reading. Let's pick out an envelope at random. This one, sent by some Klasse 7 pupils from Germany. They're 13 years old. Hey! There's even an article about them. 'The suffering of cattle before they become burgers...' Ah, yes, these young people are shocked by the mistreatment of animals. So they've sent a petition to the Parliament to ask it to do something. By the way, sir - he's the secretary - do you get many petitions? Yes, Blink. In 2011, for example, we received 1,500 petitions. We declared about 900 of those petitions admissible. That means that the subject of the petition was within the EU's fields of activity. What are those fields? -The environment is very important. Then there are human rights, questions on the freedom of movement, people being able to travel freely across the borders between countries. Also questions of people's rights concerning their property, their homes. That is also what is known as a fundamental right. There are other questions we discuss: transport questions, questions about the construction of motorways, should it go through a particular forest, is the forest protected by the EU? There's a group of MEPs who deal with petitions. They decide if they're admissible or not, and whether the EU can intervene in that field or not. Then they send them for closer examination either within the Parliament, to other MEPs specialised in the subject of the petition, or less often the Petitions Committee investigates and puts its conclusions to a vote by all MEPs in a plenary session, or to the European Commission, which is a bit like the government of the EU. For the petition of our young Germans, the answer was simple. Mistreatment of animals also worries the Parliament. An MEP has just presented a report on the subject. But sometimes the MEPs have to go on site to really understand the situation. And sometimes a petition makes a lot of noise in the Parliament, like the one against ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But counterfeiting concerns lots of things, like illegal copies of objects, clothes, or even films. The petitioners feared they would lose their freedom on the internet. The petition was examined for months and the media talked about it a lot. In the end, the Parliament followed the petitioners and rejected the agreement. In short, if you want to get the attention of MEPs, not on any old subject, a petition is a good way to start the debate. Bye! EuroparlTV video ID: 4306ff8d-8a99-4f6e-a618-a10200e12c9c
