The collection of signatures for the European citizens' initiative launched by the Székely National Council to protect the national regions ends at midnight, the activists are still working in Belgium in the last hours, said the campaign manager of the petition launched in connection with the initiative on the current channel M1 on Friday morning.
László Pesty said: the campaign has been going on for 15 months. A year ago, we already had one million online recommendations and collected the required number of signatures in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Croatia, Lithuania, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain, Latvia and Ireland. They left Belgium for the end, they are still collecting signatures there in the last hours. According to his experience, the Flemish community in Belgium was receptive to the call.
He added that they currently stand at 97.5 percent, and in his opinion, in the remaining hours, they will be able to collect the necessary number of signatures in Belgium as well.
László Pesty on Radio Kossuth Good morning, Hungary! was the guest of his program on Friday, where he spoke about how the aim of the initiative is for the central bodies of the European Union to pay special attention to the national regions, indigenous national minorities, and to allow indigenous minorities to benefit directly from the EU's cohesion resources for the preservation of their language and culture. He indicated that more than 25 indigenous national minorities live in the EU member states.
In his opinion, the European citizens' initiative works poorly, 76 such initiatives were launched in the last nine years and only six were able to fulfill the conditions.
The legal institution of the European Citizens' Initiative enables the citizens of the European Union to directly request the European Commission to present a legislative proposal in the area of its competence. The citizens' initiative must be supported by signatures of at least 1 million EU citizens from at least seven of the 27 EU member states. In each of the seven member states, the minimum required number of signatures for the given country must be collected.
The collection of signatures started on May 7, 2019. In view of the coronavirus pandemic, the European Commission has repeatedly extended the deadline of the citizens' initiative launched by the Székely National Council, which thus became May 7, 2021.
MTI
