(Brussels) A new European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) – a system for democratic participation created by the Lisbon Treaty – has been launched to protect marriage and family. The initiative is called “Mum Dad & Kids”. The idea had been submitted to the European Commission on 15th October 2015 and recorded on 11th December. Since 4th April, people have been able to sign to support such Initiative: all information is on the multilingual website www.mumdadandkids.eu. “With this initiative – state the promoters, led by the delegate Edit Frivaldszky, Hungarian – the European Union is called to adopt a definition of marriage and family for a common European legislation”. “Marriage is the union of a man and a woman”, states a note, and “family is based on marriage or descendants”: these are the definitions that the citizens of the EU member states are called to support by signing. “Such definitions – the document in support of the Initiative goes on – reflect the common ground of all the legislations of the member states, in compliance with article 9 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union”. According to ECI rules, however, at least one million signatures are required, and they must be collected within 12 months in the member states. Once the signatures have been collected, the European Commission may take the initiative into consideration.