The signature collection phase for this initiative closed on 17 May 2025, with over 1.24 million signatures, and minimum number thresholds reached in 11 Member States! In its last week, the organisers successfully gathered around 1 million signatures. With this achievement, the initiative can now proceed to be submitted for verification of the signatures.
Matteo Garguilo is the representative of the European citizens’ initiative Ban on Conversion Practices in the EU. He is co-president of ACT, the European Association Against Conversion Therapy and studies at Sciences Po University in Lyon, following a specialisation in International and European Affairs with a focus on Human Rights promotion.
A year after his first interview for the Forum we asked him to look back at the campaign and share his experience from the months passed.
Matteo: We launched the Ban on Conversion Practices in the EU campaign on May 17th, 2024, and since then, we were able to gather over 234,000 signatures (data as of April 2025). I am proud with our achievement!
With one month left (signature collection ends in May 2025) we have few chances to reach the one million target. However, we are happy to have reached this number of signatures with zero funding, with very little capacity, and a tiny staff.
People are starting to talk more about banning conversion therapy and one of the reasons is our European citizens’ initiative.
In addition, the European Commissioner for Preparedness, Crisis Management and Equality Hadja Lahbib included the ban in her political priorities for her mandate.
Having a niche topic requires a lot more effort
There is a complex of reasons behind the fact that we weren’t able to secure the necessary signatures for our ECI.
I would start with the niche character of the topic. Conversion therapy is less known outside of the LGBTQ community and if you don't really pay attention to what's going on in there, you don't really know much about this topic.
Compared to abortion rights, which is a more current topic, fewer people were inclined to sign our ECI. Some actually thought conversion therapy has been illegal in the EU for many years and decades.
Working with a niche topic needs more effort to reach out to people, especially in countries where the rights of the LGBT community are still not established on national level. In these countries it is even more challenging to draw attention and get partners for the campaign.
We've been insulted multiple times online, but this doesn't stop us.
Other than that, we were not targeted and didn’t have to fight with social prejudice as much as one should think.
Since we're trying just to get signatures, we only went to people who shared our cause.
Why doing your best may not be enough to succeed with your ECI campaign
One million signatures is a lot, but the number is achievable if you have sufficient staff, and the capacity to do a broad campaign with money and people. I still believe that we would have been able to reach our million target if we had more time for making our campaign successful.
With a team made entirely of students, for us the ECI is activism that we did on the side, as volunteers.
If I could change something in the ECI, it would probably be the thresholds – the minimum of signatures you need to get in every country. In some, as in Malta or Cyprus, they are too high - one percent of the population. While in France for example the bar is 50 000 - 0.1 percent of the population. It doesn't make sense to me. The threshold in smaller countries should be actually smaller.
See how the thresholds for the Member States are calculated
I would also raise the question of the online signature collection website, which in my opinion is not intuitive enough. It takes time to understand what you have to do, and it is more than some people want to spend on this task. They're confused and sometimes are leaving without signing.
(N.B. As of April 2025, at the time of the writing this article the Central Online Collection System is being revamped to further improve usability.)
Our campaign
It took us eleven months to prepare and at the time of the launch of our campaign we thought we knew where we were going and how to achieve our goal, but as we went further, we discovered that we were understaffed and underfunded. We started with a team of three and continued with a similar amount of people through the year, and this was not enough.
Take me as an example. I am a student I and also work sometimes outside of my studies, juggling also with my family. In general, I have 15 - 20 hours per week to dedicate to the campaign and it is not enough.
Don’t get me wrong: we didn’t underestimate the importance of the financial donors. We decided not to go after them as it meant that we have to dedicate additional time filling questionnaires, making calls and doing paperwork. For us focusing on our main goal was more precious. We decided the time we need to spend on bringing the money was not worth it, and we concentrated on the actual gathering of the signatures instead. Since we had so little time and so few people, the benefits of having the money didn’t seem so high.
After ten months on the campaign, I have to admit that we should have had someone who is a professional in budgets, and to rely more on the advice to secure our financing needs!
- The organiser of Ban Conversion Practices in the EU: We chose to use the European Citizens’ Initiative because it gives voice to European citizens
- Watch Meet and Greet with the organisers of the European citizens’ initiatives (ECI) 'Creation of a European Environmental Authority' and 'Ban Conversion Practices in the EU'
- Start Early and Build Trust: Democracy International’s Tips on Funding Your European Citizens’ Initiative
- How to succeed with the European Citizens’ Initiative: Strategic planning, cross-border collaboration and targeted campaigns
- What donors look for in European citizens' initiatives and how to secure their support
- Unlocking Engagement: Strategies to Reach and Activate the Unengaged for Your ECI
- Ask an expert about Your initiative idea
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The opinions expressed on the ECI Forum reflect solely the point of view of their authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the position of the European Commission or of the European Union.
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