A blow to European populists: about 1.2 million people signed the pro-choice petition to the EU

More than a decade after the creation of the European Citizens' Initiative (ECI), the EU's common petitioning system, it is clear that gathering a million signatures for or against a cause is a major challenge, even among the 27 million inhabitants of the EU, and one that requires hard campaigning.

That is why it is gratifying for the defenders of freedoms and women's rights that in one year they have collected the signatures needed to validate the European Citizens' Initiative "My Voice, My Choice: for safe and accessible abortion". About 1.2 million signatures were collected by the end of the campaign on 24 April 2025.

The Citizens' Initiative on Abortion Access is a success in terms of freedom. However, in 13 years, this is only the eleventh citizens' initiative to have obtained the required 1 million valid signatures. 

By comparison, 95 initiatives have failed (68 failed to obtain the required signatures and 27 were withdrawn by their initiators) out of a total of 119 accepted by the European Commission.

What is the flagship of the citizens’ initiative on abortion access?

The “My Voice, My Choice” campaign aims to give Europe the opportunity to make life freer, safer and better for women in the EU, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances," says the campaign's launch.

It does not propose to do this through the forced harmonisation of health rules, which are typically the responsibility of EU member states. Instead, it calls on the European Commission, in a spirit of solidarity, to put forward a proposal for financial support for Member States that are able to provide safe abortion in Europe for all those who do not yet have access to safe and legal abortion.

The lack of access to abortion as a basic women's health care in many parts of Europe not only puts women at risk of physical harm, but also puts undue economic and mental pressure on women, often in marginalised communities that can least afford abortion.

"It is a well-documented fact that abortion rates do not decrease when reproductive health care is marketed as a luxury product, but only leads women to choose unsafe abortion," their campaign appeal states.

Strongly pro-choice Eastern European countries

Few people are surprised that countries with strong guarantees of freedom such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, France and Germany have more signatures than necessary (155-350%). 

However, there are also some very surprising countries, among those that have joined since 2004: Slovenia (842%), Croatia (775%) and Romania (306%) have met their country's thresholds. The absolute front-runners were the Finns, with a population of 5.4 million, who, after the Slovenes, had the highest number of signatures (758% of the minimum threshold – 74,000 signatures) to confirm women's safe access to abortion.

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The lack of access to abortion as a basic women’s health care in many parts of Europe not only puts women at risk of physical harm, but also puts undue economic and mental pressure on women

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For Hungarian women, it is particularly positive that the Hungarian supporters have obtained more than the required 14,805 votes, a total of 17,638 signatures. This is the threshold for Hungarian supporters' votes to be valid under the EU's Citizens' Initiative rules, which require signatures to be collected from at least one third of the countries and to reach a minimum threshold in each one to be valid.

This puts the proportion of Hungarians in favour of safe and accessible abortion at a similar level to those in favour in Poland, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Greece. Given these figures, it is more understandable that while the Hungarian government has been encroaching on the freedoms of all kinds of social groups – from the homeless, migrants and drug users to gay people – over the last 15 years, it has not dared to seriously try to restrict abortion rights.

Despite the above list, a number of "new" EU countries, such as the Bulgarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Latvians and finally the two Mediterranean island countries Malta and Cyprus, failed to reach the required number of signatures to be valid.

Next steps

Following the successful ECI campaign, EUrologus asked the European Commission, which is also responsible for preparing the legal steps, negotiating with the EU and certifying the referendum. A spokesperson said that once the deadline for the initiative has expired (i.e. when the collection of signatures closes), the Commission has three months to verify the validity of the signatures and if it formally concludes that the necessary number of signatures has been collected in proportion to at least one third of the member states, the ECI organisers can submit the initiative pro forma to the Commission for examination.

The Commission then has six months to prepare a formal response in the form of a Communication, adopted by the College of EU Commissioners, setting out its legal and political conclusions on the initiative and the measures envisaged (if any) or, failing that, the reasons for not taking action.

"If the Commission envisages taking action in response to the initiative, including, where appropriate, the adoption of one or more proposals for EU legislation, the Communication will also include the envisaged timetable for such action. A public hearing will also be organised in the European Parliament during the 6-month period of scrutiny, where the organisers will be able to present their initiative” said the spokesperson in charge reminded EUrologus.

👉 Original article on EUrologus

🤝 This article was written in the framework of the PULSE cross-border journalistic cooperation project. Viktória Serdült from HVG (Budapest) contributed.