[pp.int.general] European citizens' Initiative - ID requirement & data retention

[P. Maechler]

Zitat von Jerry Weyer <jerry.weyer at piratepartei.lu>:
>> The problem starts by as EU member states hold the sole power to hand
>> in these petitions and are free to implement the verification process
>> to their willing; there is no safe-guard yet!
>> e.g. in NL the ministry of economical affairs is doing the
>> implementation and is going to ask some NGO (!) to arrange the
>> verification process.
>>
>
> So lobby your government to chose appropriate partners. Why condemn the
> whole process beforehand? Also there are other people that complain because
> government agencies should verify signatures - they could influence the ECI
> too!

The thing is that the regulation on EU level needs stronger  
implementation. Asking for a due national implementation is a good,  
but not a sufficient measure.

>> This is just a great tool for political abuse for foreign, national
>> and/or corporate power-play interests, instead of interests of common
>> European citizens.
>> I'm not making this up; we've just seen that Spain has been subject to
>> pressure by the US when it came to the Sinde law, as well as Sweden
>> was once.
>>
>
> I don't see your point. How would that work exactly? The verification
> agency would forge thousands of signatures?

Exactly.
In Switzerland initiatives and referendums are usually due to be  
handed in to the respective organ which it targets (national, cantonal  
or community level). The verification process itself is always done on  
community level, but it's not as if the community could forge  
signatures easily; also the signatures are certainly not to be handed  
out to some NGO. There are strict rules in place.
Still signatures are forged sometimes; not by communities, not on  
cantonal, nor on national level. There have been attempts to forge  
signatures by companies that are getting paid for collecting  
signatures (respectively their workers who are getting paid on a per  
signature basis); the forging has become evident as they were unable  
to provide the correct birthdate, but instead just used the phonebook;  
so the failed to be due in the verification process.
If you hand out signature to so random NGOs, they can certainly be  
bribed or pressured for providing the signature data to parties  
interested . This can be used for political campaigning; e.g. by  
targeting the people that signed with counter-propaganda. If the  
signatures are solely to be verified in national institutions, but not  
to be handed in on EU level, the risk still exists, admittedly on a  
lower level; but as you can see by the pressure applied to Spain it  
indeed does exist.

-pat