The European Citizens’ Initiative is struggling to gain momentum a year after being launched, bogged down by technical and bureaucratic hurdles that have prevented a single petition from meeting all the requirements, civic activists say. ECIs are a form of petition created under the 2009 Lisbon Treaty to encourage grassroots involvement in European lawmaking. Of the nearly 30 proposed ECIs, only 14 have successfully registered and just one—focusing on water rights—has gathered the required one million signatures. But the latter falls short of requirements because the signatures come only from five EU states, two short of the minimum needed. …