The Estonian Cooperation Assembly, in collaboration with the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu), has created a portal with the goal of helping citizens to co-create policies in the country. Called Rahvaalgatus.ee, the portal allows any citizen “to write proposals, hold discussions, compose and send digitally signed collective addresses to the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu)”, the website said. Through this platform, citizens can also submit a proposal or an amendment to existing regulations.

Proposals must collect at least 1000 digital signatures to be sent to the Estonian Parliament. According to the law of the country, “the Parliament will have to process appeals that have at least 1000 signatures. During the period from spring 2014 until the beginning of 2016, the Parliament has processed 11 collective initiatives and two of them have been made into laws”, the platform stated.  To digitally sign an initiative, citizens can use their ID card or their mobile ID.

The platform enables citizens to “follow the proceeding of the address in the parliament and whether it will become a draft act”.

Initiatives and discussions

Rahvaalgatus.ee, offers two ways to participate:

• Discussions. Citizens can create new discussions which are open to comments for 2 months;
• Initiatives. These are co-created political proposals which are proposed for approval. They can be signed.

Examples of initiatives are:

• ecological improvement, like the building of a small causeway (677 signatures),
• a petition to organise the holding of a referendum.

One of topics currently being discussed deals with a proposal to ban headphones on the street.

This portal is one of the initiatives of the OGP National Action Plan 2014-2016 of Estonia.