The Day of Citizens' Initiatives

Saturday, June 5 is Citizens' Initiatives Day, on this day all citizens' initiatives in the Netherlands are in the spotlight. This day takes place every year during the We do it together! Festival, an initiative of several social organizations: KNHM Foundation, VSBfonds, DOEN Foundation, Oranje Fonds, Nederland Zorgt Voor Elkaar and LSA. By making initiatives of active residents visible, the initiators want to inspire and encourage them to work together on a new society.

Citizen initiatives come in many forms: they can concern allotments, play areas, meal service, a cultural square, or making a tunnel safer. The essence is that it always concerns projects for which residents take the initiative and which they plan and implement themselves.

A more formal form of citizens' initiative is the opportunity for everyone in the Netherlands to put a certain topic on the political agenda. This can be done both in national politics and in your own country local authority. It is a way to draw more attention to a subject.

In recent years, the House of Representatives has discussed, among other things, citizens' initiatives on completed life, the Palestinian issue and the introduction of the euro.

Citizen initiatives can also be introduced at the municipal level and this may increase with the introduction of the Environmental Act as of July 1, 2022. The Environmental Act replaces dozens of laws and hundreds of rules in one new law. The purpose of this law is to ultimately make it easier for residents and companies to start projects or renovations.

Because the environmental law can still be quite complicated, the 'Environmental law toolkit' has been developed that provides municipalities, but also companies or organizations, with useful information and resources that can be freely used and adapted.