EuroPetition on Dutch Radio

The EuroPetition Dutch Cluster had a press conference on 3^th of February 2010 during a Citizens Participation symposium which took place in Utrecht at the Media Plaza with over 150 visitors mainly from the communication departments of municipalities.

RNW (Radio Nederland Wereldomroep) did a live radio interview about the project. The RNW is a radio station that can be received worldwide. You can hear the interview (in Dutch) at Interview

For the press conference several Dutch newspapers, local and national, were invited, and a press release was circulated a few days before the press conference.

Representatives at the press conference were Matt Poelmans, director Burgerlink (http://www.burgerlink.nl/englishsite/englishsite.html); Reinder Rustema, founder Petities.nl where EuroPetition has a desk and Dirk-Jan van Gaalen project leader EuroPetition Dutch Cluster. Questions asked were about the project, the continuity after that the project ends, the goals of the project and how many signatures are needed for a petition to the European Parliament.

The radio fragment is from the RNW, Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (Radio Netherlands Worldwide) RNW is a radio station for Dutch people in foreign countries i.e. expats and people on holiday. The radio station can be listened to on the internet, the satellite and the shortwave worldwide.

It was a live interview without any preparation and was broadcasted live on the 3th of February around 17.15 hours. The interview took place through a phone connection with the studio. The fragment was for the program Nieuwslijn (newsline), a program with the most important national and international news. Furthermore newswire provides reports, financial news and economic reports with an explanation to the news by specialists or correspondents of RNW. The people involved were the presenter of Newsline and Dirk-Jan van Gaalen, project leader Dutch cluster EuroPetition who got interviewed.  

 Keypoint from the interview these are not quotes but a summary:

1. How does EuroPetition work? In the Netherlands EuroPetition has a desk on Petities.nl. This desk is connected with other petitioning systems in 5 countries in Europe.

2. Which countries are involved? The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Sweden, UK and petitions are translated in the 5 different languages so people from Holland can sign a petition started in Italy.

3. How many signatures are necessary? For the Europian Parliament one signature is enough, but for more support and effect you need more signatures. The European Citizens Initiative is currently being discussed and does have regulations about the signatures, but this is still being discussed. An E CI also brings obligations for the EP or Commission.