Are you a European citizen? Then no matter what your country is, you can officially sign the European
Citizens Initiative! We know you've been
waiting this for more than one year...
but now is the time ! The efforts of
citizens and organizations coming
from more than fifteen countries
are eventually going to be rewarded.

How to sign the European Citizens' Initiative

After European Commission has finally accepted our proposition, the citizens' committee has worked hard with the Commission to implement the system for collecting online support signatures and the basicincome2013.eu website, the official campaign site in several languages. This request has raised many questions. Yet there is a legitimate reason for this: this is not a simple petition as you can sign on websites like AVAAZ or change.org, where only a simple e-mail address is requested.

Your data are safe

Signatures are national, formally speaking, and legally binding, almost like on-line votes. We are therefore subject to the each country’s legislation on citizens' initiatives, which may require us to ask for personal information (including an ID number) in order to ensure the validity of the signatures. Thus, the cumbersome process of setting up the signature scheme is the price to pay for the safety of your informations. The data are encrypted and kindly hosted on European Commission's servers. But only a very limited number of committee citizens – with penal responsibility, in case of abuses - have access to decryption keys (also stored in a safe place ...) to retrieve the data. And of course, no data transfer is enabled.

Towards 1 million signatures!

We now have to collect a million signatures before January 14, 2014, while achieving a minimum threshold in at least seven EU countries. However, it will take much longer to compensate for those country where the idea of a basic income is not (yet) popular. Paper forms are also available for those who are not comfortable with computers. However, we draw your attention to the logistics burden involved, and ask you to organize locally and store signed forms in a safe place.

Opening a debate about basic income

If the initiative gets the success we take for granted, European Commission will be formally bound to address such request and give the organizers an audience before the European Parliament. But beyond this uncertain outcome, “the idea is to kickstart a public debate about basic income and all the reletionships with work, money, time, citizenship that this idea will force us to reconsider.” highlights Stanislas Jourdan, one of the supporters.

According to the ECI initiative recorded on November 14, 2012 (entitled "Unconditional Basic Income - Exploring a path to emancipating conditions in the EU", our application is essentially getting the institutions European put the issue of basic income into the agenda, and fund pilot studies to devise the different ways of implementing UBI on a European scale.

Join a local group!

Many local group are rising to promote the initiative in close touch with our citizens. Consider join your local group.

So what are you waiting for ? Join us and invite your friends to do the same, starting from here!

Get updated: "like" the Initiative's facebook page If you have any other question about ICE, consult the ECI FAQ

Image Credit: Bham_FOE (cc) Remixed by pepie34
Firstly published on revenudebase.info (in french), edited by revenudebase.ch