EUU, Alm.del - 2013-14 - Bilag 372: Pressemeddelelse fra Europinion om deres nye website

“Europe? That is you and me, not only the EU-institutions”New site Europinion wants to facilitate debate between all citizens from EU member states.The Hague, 26 March 2014.Thanks to the newly established websitewww.europinion.net, citizens in the EU will find it easier todiscuss and debate European issues of their concern. The independent portal offers its users thepossibility to gauge, on their own initiative, the opinion in Europe on current affairs. Europinion is aninitiative from The Europinion Network (TEN), a Foundation that has as its main goal the promotionof cross-border discussion and debate in the European Union.Europinion is the first independent pan-European portal that permits EU citizens to create discussiongroups that can be restricted if they so wish. One of the strong features of the portal is that it ismultilingual. This lowers the threshold for European citizens to contact one another directly, todiscuss amongst themselves and to develop activities. EU-citizens can foster a European publicopinion through Europinion and expand their view on European issues. The site also offers its usersthe possibility to organise an opinion poll by themselves on any issue of their concern, thus showingthe currents of opinion in Europe on particular themes.It is the ambition of Europinion to develop into a platform for European Citizen’s Initiatives (ECI). TheECI is one of the important innovations introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon, with the aim of enhancingdirect democracy in the European Union. It allows one million EU citizens from at least a quarter ofthe total members of the Union to directly approach the European Commission and request actionfrom the Commission on any issue within its competence. The multilingual portal Europinion strivesto facilitate the collection of signatures for citizens from all member states and to make it easier as aresult for citizens to together organize an ECI. Through Europinion they will be able to collect therequired signatures for presentation to the Commission.Robbert Blij, Chairman of TEN, point to the following on the initiative: “Europe, that is us, you andme, the citizens of Europe, not only the EU institutions in Brussels. It is important that people in thedifferent member states know firsthand of each other’s ideas and opinion on current issues thatconcern all European citizens as a community. This serves to promote mutual understanding andcommon initiatives by citizens, which in turn strengthens the European integration. Europinion, thefirst activity of TEN, wants to facilitate this process.The Europinion Network Foundation (TEN) was established in 2013 by a group of friends. They feltthere was a lack of opportunity for all EU citizens to easily and swiftly directly communicate with oneanother across borders on European affairs and issues and to together develop actions andinitiatives. This is what lead to the creation of Europinion, the first portal from, by and for the citizensof the European Union.