Objective: Bringing Europe closer to its citizens   Facing a
certain political disengagement from the citizens of the
European Union, the European citizen initiative (ICE), a new
tool installing a participative democracy, offering citizens the
opportunity to actively participate in the decision-making of
European political matters. This intends to compensate for the
growing gap between Europe and its citizens. With ICE, the
latter are invited to directly address legislative bills to the
European Commission. To do this, there must be one million
citizens representing a quarter of the states of the European
Union (7 states) to call upon the European Commission, in order
to propose a bill before the European Parliament. In other
terms, it is a sort of citizens’ “right to petition” the
European Commission.   Established by the Treaty of Lisbon
(article 11, paragraph 4), the ICE went into effect on 1 April
2012. A European citizen initiative can deal with all types of
issues (the environment, agriculture, etc.) as