20260202 Selbstherrliche Entscheidung

02.02.2026 Selbstherrliche Entscheidung

Promoting citizen participation in society

... this should actually be the goal of every government, and to achieve this, it should be transparent and open toward the people and respond to their suggestions. The opposite is currently happening. Politicians behave as if they were dealing with immature children. They make decisions without consulting parliament or the people.

Open Petition writes to us on this subject:

It's still hard to believe what happened behind closed doors shortly before the turn of the year! Over 328,000 people signed our petition "Strengthen democracy – veto rights for Bundestag laws", which aims to make citizen participation more binding and transparent. We submitted it with the aim of holding a public hearing in the Bundestag. Nothing happened for a long time, until we received this absurd rejection:

"Petitions that are obviously unsuccessful do not have to be published". What is obvious is determined solely by the Petitions Committee. Ergo: The petition was quietly removed from the scene. The blow hits hard. Democratic participation is increasingly under threat. First, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner (CDU) stopped the citizens' councils, and now our petition is being shut down.

openPetition works in a non-partisan and independent manner to raise awareness of citizens' concerns in politics and the public sphere. However, when participation is formally possible but given little practical space, it blocks our work.

openPetition is a civil society platform for digital democracy that is non-partisan, non-profit, and transparent.

Protest and continue to sign the petition!
Until now every petiton with more than 50.000 signatures has to be discussed.