Quasi-prawodawcza inicjatywa obywatelska jako element demokracji uczestniczącej w systemie prawnoinstytucjonalnym Unii Europejskiej

The object of the article is to present the rulings of the primary and secondary law of the European Union pertaining to the citizens’ initiative at the suprastate level that serve the implementation of organizational and infrastructural solutions as well as the first experiences with applying the accepted legal norms, administrative procedures and informative-communicative means. The analysis of the legal grounds aims at positioning the European citizens’ initiative in the classifications of democracy and its tools proposed so far, and adjusting theoretical approaches to states to the needs of studies on a suprastate organization of an integrative character. Analysis of the course and results of hitherto application of the rulings on the European Citizens’ Initiative purports to answer the question whether and how the direct power of the citizens of the European Union is exercised in practice at the level of this organization. The focus of the study is the question whether implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon actually results in a significant broadening of the scope of participating democracy and whether the European citizens are interested in using this new instrument of democracy, namely popular initiative at the suprastate level.