The ECI DAY 2018 comes in the middle of the ongoing consultations on the new European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) proposals made by the European Commission in September 2017 after it was announced by First Vice-President Frans Timmermans in the opening session of the ECI DAY 2017. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will have produced its opinion by then and the opinions and advanced reports from the other institutions will also be available.
The conference will tap into the need for a greater involvement of the Members States with their newly assigned ECI-related tasks. It will also stress the importance of sharing various tasks by all EU institutions and ECI stakeholders to make the ECI strong and efficient as a dialoguing tool between the citizens and the EU. The afternoon workshops will analyse in depth the following aspects: the new proposal in the light of the statements from the opening session, presentation and development of the Commission's ECI online collaborative platform and the ECI communication campaign run by the Commission, including the role for the EESC.