[ad_1]
In the previous deadline of May 7, more than a million people had supported the European Citizens’ Initiative of the Szekler National Council, after a great second round. The petitioners’ aim is for the European Union’s cohesion policy to give priority to regions that are distinguished from surrounding regions by national, ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic specificities. According to the promoters, the backwardness of these regions, including geographical areas without administrative powers, should be avoided by maintaining the conditions of economic, social and territorial cohesion without modifying their characteristics.
For this, they must be guaranteed equal access to the Structural Funds, all other funds, resources and EU programs, guarantees must be created to maintain their specificities, to ensure adequate economic development, to ensure sustainable and harmonious development. of the Union and its cultural diversity.
– can be found in the description attached to the request.
In legal terms, the “first round” of collection was not successful, as the conditions required the collection of a certain number of signatures in at least seven Member States, but this was not met. However, the initiative had a new opportunity after the European Parliament and the European Council, on the basis of a proposal from the European Commission, approved the European Citizens’ Initiative until 7 November 2020, in view of the situation of the coronavirus. According to the accountant, in addition to Hungary, Slovakia and Romania have so far managed to collect the minimum number of signatures required. In addition to the party’s sympathy, various politicians and public figures have defended and encouraged them to sign, in addition to party sympathy.
There is still a month left until November 7, according to the accountant, the required number of sponsor signatures was still met in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. In several countries, however, the figures seem to hold. What could be the reason for this?
The peculiarity of online communication marketing processes is that the signatures are carried out in the last period, but it is necessary to push in it about two and a half months of work. For those who don’t believe, check out the spring numbers. Look, we have been working for almost three months, and in the last five days, eighty percent of the signatures have been generated, while we achieved the symbolic victory of May 7, the collection of a million signatures. Now we are modeling the same thing we did in the spring, that is why we are not frustrated, we have no doubts. It worked in the spring, it will work now.
Do you need to collect the necessary signatures in at least seven countries, which are the destination countries?
Our four main destinations are Slovenia, Croatia, Sweden and Lithuania. They are followed by the bench, Spain, and then the army pilots: Poland and Italy.
How do you try to promote the initiative in other countries? Who do they work with?
We have the widest range of collaboration available, from pop stars to politicians. In general, all the followers belong to some local minority. We launched the petition campaign on Google weeks ago, communicated in twenty-two languages in seven countries, and already in the initial trial period we put out 504 different posters on the online press surfaces in those countries. We also launched a campaign on social networks: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. If your dear reader, be it from the left or right, is sympathetic to the issue of European minorities, please sign up and start liking, sharing and commenting on the posts on our social media sites. The first 5-6 thousand visitors could drive traffic. It’s a ten minute job, I think it suits everyone.
Previously, an additional 1 million signatures and support were targeted for ten countries. Could this still be realistic?
Realistic. We already had three countries in the spring and now we are talking about the remaining week.
For people to know about an initiative of this type, they also need to know about it from somewhere. How much is the press of other countries involved in this?
I recently gave an interview to Die Welt. She is usually interested in the foreign press. Your offline media is very difficult to access from thousands of miles away, making it easy to collaborate with the online press.
It was a grand finale to the May submission deadline, with politicians and public figures promoting the initiative. For another successful hairstyle, how else can you mobilize?
Here, too, the spring system prevails. Celebrities in a good way, politicians, pop stars and actors who have significant support on social media, join, comment, take photos and share our messages.
What if the required signatures cannot be collected in all seven countries? Is there a next step or opportunity to put the initiative in another way at the center of EU policy?
This question should be asked of politicians, I am a specialist in marketing communication and my colleagues also understand marketing. Two cases are possible. We did it, we did the work, we did it. The other version is that you are successful, you can also do the job and also be successful. When failing, nobody calculates.
If all the conditions are met, there is also no guarantee that something will happen at some level of decision making in the case. How do you think a successful initiative will be able to reach the EU stimulus threshold?
The fact that we put two million signatures on the table in Brussels instead of a million and we mark ten instead of seven is based precisely on this consideration. Many people are skeptical about the attitude of Brussels. I said let’s put two million signatures, the ten countries, to increase the power of pressure on the issue. See Brussels, that the masses are behind the cause of the national regions. Of the 74 civic initiatives in recent years, we will be the most successful if we meet this two million limit.
The collection of signatures and information in Hungarian can be found on the Írdalá.hu website and on social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, On twitter and YouTube. The same information is also available on the initiative’s website in English.
Cover image: László Pesty, campaign manager for the Szekler National Council petition Photo: MTI / Tibor Rosta
[ad_2]
