II. Treatment and follow-up

2.11 What happens with my petition after submission?

After submission of your petition to the Parliament either electronically or by post, it will firstly be registered by the European Parliament services, marked as anonymous if you request this, and assigned a petition number. You will then receive written acknowledgement of the receipt of your petition.

After registration, petitions are transmitted to the Secretariat of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament for analysis and assessment.

The Secretariat may contact you to request additional information using the contact information provided in your petition. It is therefore important to provide up-to-date contact information. The Secretariat prepares a summary of the petition and provides recommendations to Members of the Committee on Petitions for further action.

Decisions on the admissibility or inadmissibility of petitions are taken by the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament.

2.12 What action is taken in the case of inadmissible petitions?

If your petition does not fulfil the admissibility requirements (see “Who can submit a petition?”, “What subject can your petition concern?” and “How should I draft my petition?”), it will be declared inadmissible by the Committee on Petitions. Petitions declared inadmissible are filed and no further action is taken. The Committee will provide you with a written notification of its decision.

Depending on the subject of your petition, the Committee on Petitions may advise you to pursue alternative means of redress, such as contact a non-EU body (e.g. the European Court of Human Rights), a national authority (e.g. the national ombudsman or national petitions committees) or a judicial authority.

2.13 What action is taken in the case of admissible petitions?

If your petition fulfils the admissibility requirements, it will be declared admissible by the Committee on Petitions, which will then decide what type of action should be taken according to Article 227 of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure.

Depending on the circumstances, the Committee on Petitions may proceed in one or several of the following ways:

ask the European Commission to conduct a preliminary investigation on your petition and provide information regarding compliance with relevant EU legislation;
refer your petition to other European Parliament committees for information or further action (a committee might, for example, take account of a petition in its legislative activities) or to another EU institution, body or agency;
ask the national authorities for information or clarifications in relation to the issues raised in your petition;
in some exceptional cases, prepare and submit reports or resolutions to be voted on by the European Parliament in plenary, or conduct a fact-finding visit to the country or region concerned and issue a report containing its observations and recommendations;
suggest an alternative means of redress, such as SOLVIT. When your rights as a citizen or as a business have been breached by public authorities in another Member State, the Committee on Petitions can recommend that you contact SOLVIT - an online service provided by the national administration in each EU country. The Committee on Petitions does not forward petitions directly to SOLVIT as it should be your choice whether or not to make use of this option; take any other action considered appropriate to try to resolve an issue or deliver a suitable response to your petition;
place your petition on the Committee’s agenda and discuss it in a meeting to which you will be invited.

Whatever is decided, the Committee on Petitions will inform you as soon as possible in writing after the decision has been made.

2.14 Will my petition be discussed in a meeting?

The Secretariat receives a large number of petitions each year, most of which are processed using a written procedure. Petitions to be discussed in Committee meetings are selected by the Members, based on suggestions by political groups or by the Secretariat. Please note that not all petitions are discussed in public and placed on meeting agendas.

Meeting agendas are published on the Committee's website.

Meetings of the Committee on Petitions take place every month, as a rule, except during the month of August when Parliament is in recess. The Committee is assisted in its work by a permanent Secretariat, which manages the petitions process, has an advisory role and prepares the Committee meetings. Meetings of the Committee on Petitions are held in public and you may be invited to attend when your petition is discussed.

The Committee on Petitions places importance on the transparency of its meetings, which are web-streamed.

2.15 How are petitions closed?

Your petition will be closed after its consideration, if the Committee decides that it has been sufficiently addressed, discussed and researched. The Committee may also decide to close your petition:

a. after suggesting a remedy and/or providing you with relevant information that addresses your concerns;

b. after a discussion in the Committee meeting;

c. when the Committee decides that no further action can be taken on your petition, the petition is included for closure in a special list (the B list) of the Committee's agenda. This list is deemed to be approved at the end of the Committee meeting;

d. if you fail to respond or react on questions addressed to you by the Committee within a given deadline.

In all cases, you will be informed of the decision of the Committee in writing and of the reasons for the decision, and provided with relevant information and documentation where appropriate once the decision becomes available.

2.16 Can I appeal a decision of the Petitions Committee?

The European Parliament is not a court of appeal and has no investigative or sanctionary powers of its own. It is a political assembly, acts as a facilitator for citizens, and may lend political support.

If, however, new information strengthening your case emerges, you may submit it. The Committee may consider re-opening the case.

2.17 Will my petition become public and appear on the PETI portal?

Original petition texts are not published on the Petitions Portal of the European Parliament (PETI Portal), nor translated, but are however made available in full to the members of the Committee on Petitions. Only summaries of petitions, prepared by the Secretariat of the Committee on Petitions, are made available to the public in all official EU languages. The summaries are published only after a decision on admissibility has been taken by the Committee on Petitions.

Such summaries include the name of the petitioner (or their initials if anonymous treatment has been requested), the nationality of the petitioner, title of the petition and an outline of the issue. Following the publication of summaries on the PETI Portal, it is possible to view the status of petitions and support petitions online (please refer to section “How can I support a petition? What does this mean?”). Some petitions submitted in 2014-2016 are not made public due to different confidentiality rules in place at the moment of the lodging these petitions.

Please note that the European Parliament reserves the right to neither publish nor translate certain petition summaries, such as those whose subject does not fall within the scope of the EU's fields of activity, those lacking substantial elements enabling the identification of the EU’s fields of activity, those with incoherent reasoning with an unclear link to the EU’s fields of activity or those containing hate speech.

Petitions submitted to the European Parliament become public documents.

Petitions not yet processed and not adopted (on which there is no decision on admissibility) do not appear in the search results.