Let's do it world!

Have you ever wanted to know more about what we are doing at the moment in order

to promote our amazing movement in Europe and on the European institutions level?

Well, read on and I'll tell you the story!

Members from the European Parliament (MEPs), who you have been elected and

sent to Brussels in May 2009 to represent YOU citizens, can use an instrument called

a written declaration, to promote an issue and make noise about it.

A group of up to five MEPs can submit it by presenting a text to be signed by their

colleagues. If the declaration is signed by a majority of the MEPs, it is then forwarded

to the President of the European Parliament (EP), who announces it during the

plenary session (the chamber, which gathers once a month in Strasbourg to vote on

the legislation texts) and sends it together with the names of the signatories to the

European Commission, to the Council and to the governments and parliaments of the

27 Member States.

After that step, it is up to those institutions to do something with it or not but one thing

is clear, WE can use it in the media and for our publicity! WE can then write to our

governments more easily too! WE CAN DO IT!

Five MEPS:

Indrek Tarand from Estonia (Independent Green)

Corinne Lepage from France (ALDE)

Ana Gomes from Portugal (S&D)

Radvile Morkunaite from Lithuania (EPP)

Romana Jordan Cizelj from Slovenia (EPP)

decided to help the Let’s Do It World Movement. People working in their offices

worked in the text with the help of people from the international team.

The text is underlining the poor implementation and enforcement of EU

waste legislation in general, the lack of social responsibility and awareness of

environmental issues in many Member States of the European Union. But it also

makes clear that despite that, people themselves want to do something for their

environment and push for change in their countries. The MEPs welcome the national

civilian grass-root initiatives in the framework of the ‘Let’s do it!’ action movement

and states that it has led to huge citizens participation in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,

Portugal, Slovenia and Romania since 2008 and that these initiatives have produced

concrete results such as mapping and cleaning up illegal waste littering.

MEPs underline the fact that ‘Let’s do it world!’ is a voluntary action and movement

inviting all the countries of Europe to join together for the biggest clean-up action ever

in their country on one day in 2012.

MEPs invite politicians to actively promote initiatives like this one and encourage the

citizens to join the movement.

They consider this movement as an effective instrument, which should be widely

promoted in order to raise awareness and responsibility for waste management

aiming at the highest possible recycling rate. And they call therefore on the

Commission to support this initiative by all available means and to launch a website

publishing existing data on national waste registers and maps showing the location of

illegal dump sites.

Finally, they call on the Member States to make additional efforts to fully implement

and enforce the existing EU waste legislation in their countries.

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW HARD IS IT TO GET THOSE SIGNATURES?

Well, contact the MEPs offices! We have plenty of jokes we will share with you!

The work is not easy, all the offices set various strategies to catch members' eyes

and ears. Last update we have from the March plenary session is 174 signatures…

195 to go and that’s it!

In order to reach the goal, we will have on the 23rd and 24th of March in Brussels

in front of the hemicycle during the so called mini-plenary session: green t-shirts

endorsed by children from Indrek Tarand going in the corridors and in front of the

plenary to spread the message you can read: If Europe can do it, YOU CAN DO IT !

Indrek Tarand is one of the 5 MEPs - for the moment at least -, who uses every

plenary session to present the idea to all the members he encounters in the corridors

and hallways, even making funny things to catch their attention. He enjoys it very

much and uses it to learn more about the strange animals, called MEPs!

Next goal is the following: we will have people from Let’s do it world international

team coming on the next plenary session in Strasbourg (04th-07th of April), a

delegation made up of Slovenians and Estonians. We will try to invent new methods

to get the MEPs signatures! We'll keep you posted on You Tube!

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW YOU CAN HELP US?

Write a personal email to the MEPs of your country (you will find them on the

European Parliament website), and tell them how important is it for you that

they sign. There is no better solution to make an MEP afraid about a potential

disappointed voter!

I also personally call all the Portuguese people, Lithuanian and French people and

teams to come and help us in the May plenary, in case there would still be signatures

to collect!

Let's put the pressure !

We will keep you updated about the evolution of the Parliament’s story in our next

newsletter!

A quick overview of the state of play of our written declaration 0003/2011 <Titre>on :

Cleanup in Europe and Let’s do it World 2012

Some statistics we have done (state of play 15th of march 2011)

By countries:</Titre>

Latvia 7/8 = 87,5 %

Estonia 5/6 = 83 %

Finland 10/13= 77 %

Slovenia 5/7 = 71%

Lithuania 8/12 = 67 %

France 19/72 = 26 %

Poland 13/50 = 26%

Portugal 2/22 = 9 %

Romania 8/33 = 24 %

Greece 5/22 = 23%

Holland 5/25 = 20 %

Germany 9/50 = 18 %

Italy 12/72 = 17 %

Sweden 2/18 = 11%

Through committees we try to influence on the first place:

Constitutionals affairs committee : AFCO 48% (among them the President of the

committee and 1/3 of the vice presidents)

Security and defense committee : SEDE 20/58= 35%

Petition committee : PETI 18/ 62 = 29%

Foreign affairs committee : AFET 46/150 = 31%