Petition
A petition is normally a written request signed by a large number of people or a document sent to an authority.
All EU citizens have the right to send a petition to the European Parliament’s Petition Committee. This is a part of the EU Citizenship.
The Lisbon Treaty has allowed citizens to collect signatures for a new legislative proposal if one million citizens from a minimum number of countries have signed. The Commission is not obliged to respond.
The Commission has promised to propose a new draft law on access to water after the first successful petition.
Links
Committee on petition (European Parliament) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/peti_home_en.htm