Thu, 05 Apr 2007

ELIANT initiative launches online voting

BRUSSELS (NNA) – The European Alliance of Initiatives for Applied Anthroposophy (ELIANT), campaigning to collect a million signatures to show that anthroposophical initiatives have popular support, has created a facility for online voting on its www.eliant.eu website.

ELIANT says that such a show of support is necessary to give anthroposophical organisations lobbying EU institutions to affect European legislation the necessary political weight to be taken seriously.

Otherwise there could be severe consequences for the ability of anthroposophical organisations to continue working.

One example where that has already happened relates to EU Directive 96/5/EC regarding artificial vitamins in baby foods. As a result of the directive, Demeter International has lost its sales license since Demeter guidelines do not allow for artificial vitamins in baby foods as required by the directive.

So far 160,000 signatures have been collected by ELIANT within the first 100 days of the petition. “The first 100 days were a test to see whether the message is getting through at all,” says Michæla Glöckler from the group of ELIANT initiators.

The campaign is not restricted to EU citizens, since applied anthroposophy is wanted throughout the world, ELIANT argues. Each person should make his or her vote count.

Such personal commitment was more effective than putting out sheets for signatures or calls for support from associations, one of the organisers, Thomas Göing, emphasised.

Democratic support was urgently needed for forthcoming negotiations in Brussels. Because even if anthroposophical representatives had ever such good arguments when lobbying the EU, they would be ineffective if the initiatives could not demonstrate the required popular base to give political weight to their demands.

ELIANT sees one million signatures as providing such political support if they have been collected in several member states. The figure was based on the treaty establishing a European constitution (Art. I-47, Clause 4).

Although it had not entered into force, the treaty provided a basis even now for determining whether a petition to an EU authority or the Parliament had the necessary support among EU citizens, ELIANT says.

NNA/end/ung/cva

Links and address: www.eliant.eu. Thomas Göing, Aktion ELIANT, Rebgasse 37, D-79540 Lörrach. Fax +49 7621 168 18 63; Email: info@eliant.eu

Item: 070405-01EN Date: 5 April 2007

Copyright 2007 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/