VoteWatch Europe, the organisation tracking the voting and activity records of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), has released a special report to shed light on the developments in the first 6 months of the new EP term. The report is based mainly on the roll-call votes in the EP plenary.
VoteWatch Europe finds that the “grand coalition” (EPP-S&D-ALDE) is more frequent in votes in this EP than in the previous two EPs. The EPP and S&D voted together in 4 out of 5 votes in the first six months. Nevertheless, the grand coalition has broken down on several key issues so far, notoriously failing to agree on the Commission’s working plan for 2015 voted upon in January: the EPP supported the deregulation agenda, while the S&D wanted more environmental and social protection.
Professor Simon Hix Chairman of VoteWatch, explained “the immediate response of the big groups to the rise of populists on the right and the left has been to come closer together. But the grand coalition is unstable and as soon as the Juncker Commission unveiled its concrete regulatory plans, it broke down. After the elections, the EP has become more political and on some issues the Commission cannot rely on the support of a majority in the EP. Consequently, the fate of key environmental and economic policies, as well as TTIP, is harder to predict”.
The report also highlights that, following loses in elections, the centre-right EPP group has become more disciplined, which has enabled it to remain the leading force in the EP. ALDE has also become more consensual, while the ECR and the Greens-EFA have struggled to act in a united way.
Doru Frantescu Director of VoteWatch, revealed that “the fringe groups, in spite of their increased strength in numbers, have not been able to impose their own views in key EP decisions so far. However, their presence in greater numbers seems to be forcing EPP and S&D to dilute their differences. This will make it increasingly difficult for citizens to identify mainstream parties’ agenda and relate to them, which poses a problem to transparency and may result in even further support for radical views.”
The study also points out that the fringe groups use other tools to achieve visibility, such as parliamentary questions and oral and written statements. On the other hand, the non-attached MEPs have participated in more votes in this EP than in the previous EP.All in all, average MEP attendance in votes has climbed to an impressive 88%, which is the highest level in 10 years.
The report also deplores the fact that the votes in the parliamentary committees are not fully transparent. Although in theory the votes of MEPs on legislative dossiers should be made transparent, in practice the minutes with the votes are published very late, sometimes weeks after, and each of the EP committees provides the information in a different format, which makes it effectively impossible to track the votes.
