Dear allies,

today an alliance of five NGOs (bavarian branches of Democracy International, Friends of the Earth, the Catholic Worker's Movement, Campact and the Munich Environment Institute) announced in Munich that they will start a citizens initiative on CETA in Bavaria. 

The background is a change in the bavarian constiution made in 2013, which allows the bavarian parliament to make laws that force the bavarian government to vote in a certain way in the second chamber of the german parliamentary system (Bundesrat), if there is a transfer of rights from the bavarian level to the EU. As laws can also be made in a three-step process of a citizens intiative, we can start such an initiative on the ratification of CETA if there is a transfer of right to the EU connected to CETA. We can reasonably argue that there is and therefore start the intiative. 

If there is a referendum, which is the third step, the result will be bindig. Bavaria as the second in size amongst the states in Germany has six votes in Bundesrat. A majority of 35 Yes votes is needed for the agreement to be ratified. So, our initiative can make a difference, and it also will put pressure on the governments of the other states.

But before all that, we have to collect 25.000 signatures (no problem) in the first step, and make 940.000 bavarian citizens visit their town hall to personally inscribe as supporters (big challenge!) in the second step. We will now contact a huge amount of local and national NGOs and also the opposition in the bavarian parliament for their support. For any further information, contact the campaign office at info@volksbegehren-gegen-ceta.de or write to me.

Kind regards,

Karl Bär