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Abromeit’s basic argument against the initiative is unconvincing. An initiative is necessarily intensively
discussed already before it is actually launched. During the phase of signature collection, many peo-
ple have to be convinced to subscribe to an initiative. When the signature collection is successful, the
legislature (EP and Council) and the executive (Commission and Council) have ample opportunities
to discuss and criticise the popular initiative. In addition, they can have a right for a counterproposal
that includes useful parts of the initiative or provides a more reasonable alternative to citizens. It
should be realised as well that a new innovative policy or an institutional innovation in the case of
constitutional initiatives is much more difficult to accomplish than a veto on a proposal by the legisla-
ture or the executive. Risk-averse people are status quo oriented. This orientation plays against the
initiative, but for the veto via an optional referendum. Indeed, the empirical evidence from the U.S.
and Switzerland supports this argument. As mentioned in Section 2, partial interests, in particular fi-
nancially important interest groups, in the U.S. have difficulties to succeed with an initiative compared
to citizen groups, while money is influential in stopping policies by using a referendum. The experi-
ence with initiatives in Switzerland is hinting in the same direction: The majority of the federal initia-
tives are rejected. However, an initiative influences policy in many cases even when it is declined:
The political elite realises that it has neglected particular political issues to an unjustified extent and
corrects this.
All in all, the inclusion of a constitutional and statutory initiative in the European Constitution is useful
and helps to develop the EU institutionally and politically. With respect to the constitutional initiative
we propose that EU citizens as defined in the constitution as well as official authorities like the EP,
the Commission, or particular parties can trigger an initiative if they are able to collect signatures that
make up for 5 percent of the electorate. According to Matsusaka’s (1995) study for the U.S., a sig-
nature requirement of 10 percent of the electorate and more, prevents the initiative from having a sig-
nificant impact on (fiscal) policy outcomes. The median signature requirement for the popular initia-
tive at the U.S. state level is 5 percent. When Switzerland included a constitutional initiative in 1891,
the signature requirement for it was 5 percent of the electorate as well. Because it was fixed at the
absolute number of 50'000 signatures and only once increased to 100’000 after the women got their
voting rights, the threshold for an initiative has become much lower today. Alternatively, the signature
requirement could consider the representation of member countries much more strongly such that (in
addition) a signature requirement of 15 percent of the electorate in 5 countries, but 2 percent of the
electorate at least, may also be sufficient.26
There is much less research however on the time allowed to collect signatures. Even a low signature
requirement of 2 percent of the EU electorate might be unduly restrictive if only a month were al-
lowed to collect them. A look at the Swiss cantonal level might be helpful in this case. With the ex-
ception of the canton of St. Gallen no difference in collection time is made with respect to constitu-
tional and statutory initiatives. While citizens have two months to collect signatures in Nidwalden and
the Ticino, they have 18 months in Solothurn. St. Gallen allows three months for signature collection
in the case of the statutory initiative and six months for the constitutional initiative. Nine cantons don’t
have any restriction. At the EU level, more time to collect signatures is of course needed than at the
26. Papadopoulos (2002) proposes similar provisions for an EU initiative. He suggests a signature requirement of
5 percent of the electorate in at least 5 member countries.