The European Citizens' Initiative: Critical remarks in Committee of the Regions report - updated

According to a press release, the Committee of the Regions (CoR) - a consultative institution of the EU - has issued a critical opinion regarding the Commission's plans for the European Citizens' Initiative.

In the press release it is said that the CoR finds the present proposal too complicated and demands a reduction of the minimum number of countries from 1/3 to 1/4.

It is a pity that the press release doesn't link the actual report - a clear communications failure - and it was also impossible to find it via the document register of the CoR.

It is a pity because if the 1/4 rule was all the CoR was able to come up, this would have been a clear waste of time. But without the original document it is not possible to see what the Committee rapporteur Sonia Masini has produced.

So we might have to wait until 12 July when she presents her opinion to the European Parliament Committee on Constitutional Affairs (APCO)...

Update: Thanks to @Dana_Council from the Council press service, I have found the draft opinion and the amendments tabled.

Will take a more in-depth look later on.

Another glimpse into the Council's budget committee

It is the second time this year (here is the first time) that Martin Westlake, blogging Secretary General of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), allows us a glimpse into the Council's budget committee:

"I spent most of the afternoon in less comfortable surroundings; defending the Committee’s draft 2010 budget before the Council’s Budget Committee. These annual hearings with the other institutions, chaired by the future Swedish Presidency (since the final budget will be adopted during their mandate), are something of a ritualistic occasion. [...]

National treasuries had clearly been given tough instructions. As I sat down I could hear blades being sharpened and blow torches being lit and the occasional thud of a baseball bat in glove. [...]

It’s not easy for the smaller institutions and maybe particularly difficult for the two consultative committees. They are not big and indispensable like the European Commission and certainly not big enough to undertake major redeployment exercises without prejudicing vital functions. They don’t have a gentlemen’s agreement, as the Council and the Parliament do, not to look into each others’ administrative budgets. [...]

One [member state; JF] delegate referred to a sort of inverted beauty contest, with delegates competing to declare which of the two Committees is the uglier, but the Committees themselves are certainly not competing with each other in this way. [...]"

Sounds like the member states are not big friends of the EESC and the Committee of the Regions (CoR).

European communication (III): Euro-speak

Through Euractiv I have found a new European initiative called "The Simple Language Campaign", which aims at reducing "Euro-speak" in favour of a more understandable European administrative language.

The campaign has been launched by the the Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) in the Committee of the Regions of the European Union. On the campaign's website you can fill in a phrase in Euro-speak and below enter the same sentence/phrase in a citizen-friendly version.

It's a nice little toy, but I suppose that the results will contain as much nonsense as we can find in the European Union's language. The number of results is still limited, but as soon as "some" people will have discovered the page, it will be spammed as so many sites before.