The Potential Indirect Impact of the European Citizens’ Initiative on EU Legislation

The Example of the Initiative to Ban Glyphosate

Abstract

The EU re-authorisation of glyphosate, the active substance used in plant protection products, has once again highlighted the issues and problems associated with the active substance in 2023. The main source of tension is that the active substance was classified as a potential carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015, but the EU’s competent agencies have not identified any reasons for banning the active substance. Despite calls from civil society for removing glyphosate from the internal market, the European Commission has refused to ban the substance from the internal market. The aim of this paper is to present in more detail the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) to ban glyphosate and the Commission’s response to the initiative. The European Citizens’ Initiative is a legal instrument that gives EU citizens the opportunity to express their will on a specific issue or policy question. Thus, through the citizens’ initiative, it is possible to channel the demands of EU citizens into the legislative process. An analysis of the measures taken in response to the initiative, that aimed to ban glyphosate shows that an ECI can not only have a direct impact, but can also have an indirect trigger effect in terms of getting the Commission to pay attention to an important issue. The result of this indirect trigger effect may be that, after a longer period of time, the Commission finally initiates legislation on the subject of a particular ECI.