Short History

In 1998, More Democracy established a working group dealing with European and worldwide issues. After several years of discussion and information a first proposal for integrating elements of direct democracy into the existing EU treaties was presented in 2001 (updated version available on our homepage). We established the Network of Direct Democracy Initiatives in Europe (NDDIE), an informal cooperation of initiatives that organised three conferences (Munich 2000, Prague 2001, Bratislava 2002) to bring committed activists together.

On the eve of the Convention for the Future of Europe we decided to work in two different fields. We started the European Referendum Campaign and opened an office in Frankfurt. In parallel we pushed for the inclusion of initiative and referendum in the final text of the Convention.

Both strategies proved very successful. With our campaign we have contributed to the fact that (as of 1.1.2005) nine member states have declared that they will ratify the European constitution by referendum. And our Convention work led directly to Art. I-47 (4) of the draft European Constitution, the so-called European Citizens´ Initiative that enables at least one million citizens from a significant number of member states to ask the European Commission to take legislative action. This would be the very first tool of international direct democracy – if the constitution enters into force. In the meantime, the European Referendum Campaign and the Convention work have come to an end and after several discussions we have decided to formally found Democracy International. Six committed and long experienced activists Heiko Dittmer, Carsten Berg, Ronald Pabst, Gerald Häfner, Roman Huber and Michael Efler took the initiative and started the process of founding Democracy International.

Goals of Democracy International