The EU citizens' initiative focuses on the suspension of the EU climate and energy package 2009 (excluding the clauses concerning energy efficiency) and further climate regulations until signing the international agreement on CO2 emission by major emitters, i.e. China, USA and India.
We would like to remind, that the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania (EAPL) decided to collect signatures against the third climate package as, according to the party, hasty implementation of the third climate package in Europe will slow economic growth and will affect the unemployment increase (especially in the countries of Central and East Europe) which will strike common people.
'Such huge states as USA or China do not even think of CO2 emission reduction. This initiative will have more negative effects than benefits on the citizens of the countries that will implement the provisions of the package. The signatures are being collected also by other parties in other seven EU Member States. It is possible that as a result of successful campaign of collecting signatures, the European referendum would be announced and Europeans would be able to decide whether or not to suspend the implementation of the climate package,' Valdemar Tomaševski, the EAPL leader, underlined.
Adoption of the EU climate and energy package will cause the increase of energy prices in EU member states (both in industry and in households). It also involves the reduction of competitiveness of industry and increase of unemployment in the European Union. It will also cause the economic slowdown in the member states where coal is the main source of energy. The adoption of the package will also reduce GDP what will lead to the disturbed social cohesion in the EU, progress of the 'energy poverty' in all the member states of EU (even in Germany, the UK and France). It is estimated that as a result of the package adoption the prices of electricity will increase by 60-100 percent by 2020. Economists agree that energy is a base of economy, while cheap energy and electricity – the driving force of economic growth.
Yesterday, after the verification of the signatures of initiative group, the Central Electoral Commission stated that 17 284 citizens of Lithuania have signed under the initiative. It was confirmed by the certificate issued for the organizing committee. The certificate should be forwarded to the European Commission in the near future.
'The action should be considered as a success as thanks to it more than 17 thousand valid signatures of people who do not accept the implementation of the provisions of the package were collected. It should be mentioned, that in Lithuanian only 9 thousand signatures are already enough. I am glad that there is a mechanism which allows EU citizens to shape the EU policy. I hope that the initiative will be successful in all the member states that are taking part in it. Moreover, I hope that we will manage to collect 1million signatures and the subject of the initiative will be submitted to the European commission for consideration,' Mr Miroslav Romanovski, the plenipotentiary of the initiative's organising committee in Lithuania, said.