Dr. Michael Efler (Mehr Demokratie e.V., member of the ECI-committee)

Dear Partners and Friends,

on Tuesday, 15 July 2014 we held our press conference in Brussels to officially launch the European Citizens‘ Initiative against TTIP and CETA. At the same time, we registered the ECI at the European Commission.

The conference was a success. The room was completely crowded and many journalists from different countries were represented. During the conference, our panelists Susan George, Michael Efler and John Hilary of the citizens‘ committee talked about the ECI and answered many questions that were asked by the audience and via the live-chat.

The journalists that were present at conference were for example from the press agency Reuters and from the German broadcasting companies ZDF and MDR. After the conference, the panelists gave a number of interviews to journalists. Here´s the link to the Reuter´s article on our press conference: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-eu-usa-trade-idUSKBN0FK1S920140715

In case you were not able to follow the press conference on Tuesday, you can watch the full video at http://stop-ttip.org/livestream-chat/. Moreover, all the press material is available under the following link: http://stop-ttip.org/press/

Please let us know if there were any news reports about the ECI in your own country as a result of the press conference.

What’s happening next

The European Commission now has to decide if it will register our ECI. This can take up to two months. In the meantime, we will start with the thorough preparations of the signature collection phase, which will begin in September – in case of a positive response by the Commission. We will of course keep you posted on all important issues concerning the signature collection and provide you with suggestions how you can get involved as an organization.

Moreover, it would be great if you can continue to share our Facebook and Twitter channels: https://www.facebook.com/eci.ttipand @ECI_TTIP. Both channels are growing relatively fast (2,191 fans on Facebook and 262 Twitter followers) but of course we need to reach out to many more people.

If you have any further questions, feel free to contact us directly. You can reach Michael Efler at More Democracy (michael.efler@mehr-demokratie.de), Maritta Strasser at Campact (strasser@campact.de) and Karl Bär at the Munich Environment Institute (kb@umweltinstitut.org). In addition, you can contact Lisa Albers at More Democracy (lisa.albers@mehr-demokratie.de) who manages the mailing list.

Best regards,
Lisa Albers/Michael Efler
P.S.: Our alliance is still growing. 156 organizations supporting the ECI and of course we still want more 🙂

— ====================================================== Mehr Demokratie e.V. Dr. Michael Efler Bundesvorstandssprecher Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte Greifswalder Str. 4 10405 Berlin Tel.: 030 42082370 Fax: 030 42082380 Mobils: 0173 961 0454 Mail: michael.efler@mehr-demokratie.de Web: http://www.mehr-demokratie.de Besuchen Sie uns auch auf: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/mehr0demokratie0de Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mehrdemokratie Twitter: https://twitter.com/volksentscheid