The European Citizen Initiative is a great idea introduced in the Lisbon treaty: every citizen can start an initiative, collect 1 million signatures and have the European Commission respond, in the best case launching a legislative proposal (The European Commission is the only EU institution that has the power to initiate legislation at the EU level). Since the beginning, this idea has been welcomed with a mix of interest (citizens could become more active and engaged with the EU affairs, which could contribute to narrow the EU’s democratic deficit) and fear (we will get extremists using it to push crazy ideas... or simply because institutions don’t like changes). But keep in mind that the initiative is basically a super petition, and that the only legal consequence is that the commission has to reply, not make a law or actually do anything.

I'm not saying that governments (national and the European commission) have actively done all they could to sabotage this great idea, but if I had to make a great idea impractical, I would certainly use the way the Commission has dealt with this one as an inspiration.