Rule 226 : Right of petition

1.   In accordance with Article 227 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, any citizen of the European Union and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State shall have the right to address, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, a petition to Parliament on a matter which comes within the European Union's fields of activity and which affects him, her or it directly.

2.   Petitions to Parliament shall show the name and the permanent address of each petitioner.

3.   Submissions to Parliament that are clearly not intended  to be a petition shall not be registered as petitions; instead, they shall be forwarded without delay to the appropriate service for further treatment.

4.   Where a petition is signed by several natural or legal persons, the signatories shall designate a representative and deputy representatives who shall be regarded as the petitioners for the purposes of this Title.

If no such representatives have been designated the first signatory or another appropriate person shall be regarded as the petitioner.

5.   Each petitioner may at any time withdraw his, her or its signature from the petition.

If all petitioners withdraw their signatures, the petition shall become null and void.

6.   Petitions must be written in an official language of the European Union.

Petitions written in any other language will be considered only if the petitioner has attached a translation in an official language. Parliament's correspondence with the petitioner shall employ the official language in which the translation is drawn up.

The Bureau may decide that petitions and correspondence with petitioners may be drafted in other languages which, in accordance with the constitutional order of the Member States concerned, enjoy official status in all or part of their territory.

7.   Petitions can be submitted either by post or through the Petitions portal, which shall be made available on Parliament's website and which shall guide the petitioner to formulate the petition in a manner that complies with paragraphs 1 and 2.

8.   Where several petitions are received on a similar subject matter, they may be dealt with jointly.

9.   Petitions shall be entered in a register in the order in which they are received if they comply with the conditions laid down in paragraph 2. Petitions that do not comply with those conditions shall be filed, and the petitioner shall be informed of the reasons for this.

10.   Petitions entered in the register shall be forwarded by the President to the committee responsible for petitions, which shall first establish the admissibility of the petition in accordance with Article 227 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

If the committee fails to reach a consensus on the admissibility of the petition, it shall, at the request of at least one-third of the members of the committee, be declared admissible.

11.   Petitions that have been declared inadmissible by the committee shall be filed. The petitioner shall be informed of the decision and the reasons for it. Where possible, alternative means of redress may be recommended.

12.   Petitions, once registered, shall become public documents, and the name of the petitioner, possible co-petitioners and possible supporters and the contents of the petition may be published by Parliament for reasons of transparency. The petitioner, co-petitioners and supporters shall be informed accordingly.

13.   Notwithstanding paragraph 12, the petitioner, a co-petitioner or a supporter may request that his, her or its name be withheld in order to protect his, her or its privacy, in which case Parliament shall comply with the request.

Where the petitioner's complaint cannot be investigated because of the petitioner’s anonymity, the petitioner shall be consulted on the further steps to be taken.

14.   In order to protect the rights of third parties, Parliament may, on its own motion or at the request of the third party concerned, anonymise a petition and/or other data contained therein, if it sees fit to do so.

15.   Petitions addressed to Parliament by natural or legal persons who are neither citizens of the European Union nor reside in a Member State nor have their registered office in a Member State shall be registered and filed separately. The President shall send a monthly record of such petitions received during the previous month, indicating their subject-matter, to the committee. The committee may ask to see those which it wishes to consider.