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What this is

Own the Machine is an open-source draft EU Regulation accompanying a proposed European Citizens' Initiative. The proposed objectives ask the Commission to assess and propose mechanisms for citizens to participate in productivity gains from hyper-automated production. The detailed 3 % warrant mechanism is illustrative; nothing has been registered or adopted.

Boilerplate, free to reuse

Own the Machine proposes broader citizen participation in the gains of highly automated production. Its illustrative draft would create a common Reserve holding non-voting company shares and equal, non-transferable rights to distributions for EU citizens aged 18 or older. Payments would depend on available income and could be zero. The text, objections and review history are public at ownthemachine.eu. No EU institution endorses the initiative.

The numbers and their limits

• The draft's rebuttable quantitative presumption combines EUR 75 billion in value or EUR 7.5 billion in EU turnover, activity in at least three Member States, and value at least eighty times worldwide labour compensation, sustained for two financial years. Investigation can also lead to designation below the thresholds.
• A warrant arises at effective designation and is documented within three months. It crystallises at the first liquidity event, shareholder extraction exceeding 25 % of covered turnover over three consecutive financial years, or the seven-year backstop after the claim arises. Article 5 sets the precise conditions and cap.
• The warrant entitles the Reserve to subscribe at nominal value for shares representing 3 % of fully diluted capital. Share issuance is not cash income available for immediate distribution.
• The draft's capital objective is of the order of six months of median equivalised disposable income in the EU per citizen within a generation. It is an objective, not a guaranteed result; projections rely on uncertain assumptions about company coverage, new stakes, returns and costs.

Use the current evidence and legal text for definitions and dated estimates. The simulator shows conditional scenarios, not a forecast, confidence interval or personal entitlement valuation.

Status, as of 6 September 2026

No filing, registration or signature collection. The ECI Forum supplied independent, non-binding advice on 27 August; an ECI veteran replied on 5 September. Organiser recruitment and further scrutiny continue under the published gates. No constituted organising group is recorded. A statutory group needs eligible EU citizens living in seven different Member States, not necessarily seven different nationalities.

Legal and practical limits

The design uses shares and keeps assets outside public budgets. Its possible fiscal classification and proposed Treaty bases remain contested; the Forum advice is not Commission approval. Legal protections against diversion cannot guarantee that future legislators never amend the rules. The Reserve would have no voting or management rights. The individual entitlement could not be sold, pledged or redeemed; payment would require registration with a national vehicle. Success as an ECI would secure consideration and a response, not automatic enactment of this Regulation.

Assets and contact

• Public text and source material are available without buying anything. The initiator's interest in his book is disclosed on about.
• Social preview images are available under ownthemachine.eu/og/ in the five website languages.
• PDF and EPUB downloads on the law page identify the draft version.
• Text is CC BY-SA 4.0; the website and tools are open source.
• Contact: hello@ownthemachine.eu. David Vanheeswijck answers; there is no press office or guaranteed reply time.