The article focuses on the interpretation of the European Way of Life and the concept of Europeanness. Ursula von der Leyen determined the Promotion of the European Way of Life as a priority of the 2019-2024 Commission. The purpose behind this was to strengthen European democracy and place the citizens into the center of decision-making. The article examines the role of European identity, European citizenship and those historical-traditional conditions that make our way of life ‘common’. The Common European Way of Life may be defined as a value system based on the established legal basis of EU citizenship that can be grasped in the pursuit of common principles and the exercise of rights guaranteed to all EU citizens, limited only under exceptional circumstances and ensuring socio-economic convergence. The article covers general conceptual issues but also focuses on the extraordinary impact of the COVID-19. Lastly, the relevant aspects of enlargement policy are also explored.

This paper examines the latest developments in the two minority-related European Citizens’ Initiatives (ECI), the Minority SafePack Initiative and the Cohesion Policy Initiative (ECI on National Minority Regions). A key theoretical question of this paper is whether the ECI can be seen as an effective tool for the protection and promotion of the rights and interests of national minorities in the EU. The paper presents the most recent judgments of the General Court and the CJEU related to these ECIs. The Courts made important statements in terms of the admissibility criteria of ECIs, as well the possibility to propose EU legislation aiming to increase the protection of persons belonging to national and linguistic minorities. The paper also investigates the experiences of the signature collection campaign of the Cohesion Policy Initiative and the current status of the Minority SafePack Initiative in the examination phase. Finally, the paper aims to set up a prognosis on the future of these ECIs, taking into consideration the Commission’s latest proposal on the extension of the ECI deadlines.

The Lisbon Treaty introduced the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), a brand new tool of transnational participatory democracy aiming to bring Europe closer to the people. Five years after the first ECI was lodged, we have yet to see an ECI that would pass the full procedure and end up as a proposal for a legal act. The European Commission (hereinafter: Commission) refused to register almost one third of the initiatives lodged on the basis that they fall manifestly outside the framework of the Commission’s powers to submit a proposal for a legal act. The organizers of the refused Minority SafePack ECI challenged the Commission’s decision before the Court of Justice of the European Union. The General Court approved the claims of the organizers of an ECI for the first time in this case. The General Court’s findings with regard to the Commission’s duty to give proper reasoning with respect to the refusal of an ECI may be a small but important step in achieving the goals of the ECI.
In July 2013 the Citizens Committee of the ‘Minority SafePack – one million signatures for diversity in Europe’ European Citizens’ Initiative (MSPI) submitted its proposal to the European Commission. The aim of the proposal was to call upon the EU to improve the protection of persons belonging to national and linguistic minorities and strengthen cultural and linguistic diversity in the Union. The European Commission refused to register the initiative by its Decision C(2013) 5969 final of September 13, 2013 (hereinafter: the contested decision) on the grounds that it manifestly fell outside the powers of the Commission to submit a proposal for the adoption of a legal act of the European Union for the purpose of implementing the Treaties of the European Union (hereinafter: Treaties). As a result, the organizers could not even start collecting signatures for the MSPI. In November 2013, the decision of the Commission was brought before the General Court. The General Court with its judgment on February 3, 2017 approved the claims of the applicants and annulled the contested decision (hereinafter: Judgement). This was the first time the claims of the organizers of an ECI were approved by the Court of Justice of the European Union in relation to the rejection of the Commission’s decision.