VoteWatch.eu provides the public with information about the various activities of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), such as their voting records, committee work, attendance records, drafted reports, amended reports, speeches in the plenary, etc. All information displayed on the website is taken from official public sources. On the basis of the individual activities of the MEPs, VoteWatch.eu also provides a complex set of statistics with regard to the political behavior of European Political Groups and of National Delegations.
It should be stressed that the Members of the European Parliament are also involved in various important activities beyond their participations in the European Parliament plenary and committees, such as in their constituencies, and outside meetings and debates. On this website we only provide information about MEPs' activities which are formally recorded by the European Parliament. Please visit the MEPs' personal websites for more information on the other activities that MEPs are involved in.
The VoteWatch.eu website will continue to develop and improve both in terms of content of information and in terms of tools and features. We welcome any feedback, corrections and comments you may have: please email us at secretariate@votewatch.eu.
The following descriptions provide the details of how the data behind this website is collected and coded as well as explanations of the various categories used. The 'Glossary of Terms' [include link here] provides further explanations of the terminology.
Data
The data consists of all activities recorded in the European Parliament for the 2004-2009 term. It covers details information about the Member of the European Parliament (their nationality, age, backgrounds, CVs, political affiliations, etc.) and about all the policies adopted and votes cast. During the 2004-2009 Parliament - which is the 6th European Parliament - the Members have cast more than 6.000 votes. The Members themselves have amounted to a total of 940 due to some parliamentarians leaving before the end of the mandate, and others taking over their seats. The Parliament consists of 785 seats at any given time, however.
Votes
The European Parliament decides on policy proposals in the plenary by voting on the basis of either 'roll-call votes', (non-recorded) electronic votes or by a show of hands. The number of roll-call votes has increased over the past years, and when we show the voting records and statistics of the individual MEPs, the European Political Groups and the national delegations, it is on the basis of these votes.
Political line of a European Political Group
We have defined the political line of either a European Political Group or a National Delegation as the position adopted by the majority of MEPs within that Group or Delegation. Example: if 40 MEPs from the ALDE group voted "FOR", 25 MEPs voted "AGAINST" and other 27 MEPs voted 'ABSTENTION', the political line of ALDE to this vote was "FOR". In cases where an equal number of MEPs vote "FOR" and "AGAINST" in a European Political Group, the conclusion is that "there is no political line" and the statistics for the MEPs in the European Political Groups and the national delegations are shown accordingly.
* We only take into consideration National Groups with at least 5 MEPs, in order to provide statistically meaningful results.
Loyal / Rebel
A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is considered Loyal to his/her European Political Group or National Delegation if his/her voting option is identical to the political line of the European Political Group on that vote. Example: if P.Moscovici votes "FOR" and the political line of PSE to that vote is also "FOR", then he is loyal to his European Political Group. On the contrary, if he had voted "AGAINST" or "ABSTENTION", he is considered as Rebel, according to this distinction.
Since we make distinctions between an MEPs' National Delegation and his'/her European Party Group, it is obviously possible (and often the case) that an MEP is more often loyal to his/her European Party Group than to the National delegation, and vice versa.
Cohesion of a European Political Group
'Cohesion' refers to how united a European Political Group is in voting situations. This feature can be defined in various ways, but we have here calculated cohesion of the European Political Groups and of the National Delegations in 2 steps:
- At each vote, we establish an Agreement Index for each European Political Group according to the Rice formula: (Y-N)/(Y+N+A), where Y = number of votes "FOR", N = number of votes "AGAINST", and A = number of "ABSTAINTIONS";
- The cohesion rate of a European Political Group or National Delegation is then determined by the arithmetical average of the scores of the Agreement Index.
We provide results regarding both the overall cohesion rates and by various policy areas. In the latter case the cohesion rate is being calculated only in relations to the votes cast in that specific policy area.
European Political Groups that are voting together:
Unlike the political dynamics at national level, the EU level does not have politics of an explicit 'government-opposition' nature. Coalitions are instead formed on differently from one policy area to another and at times even from one proposal to a next.
VoteWatch.eu has identified and publicly displays the composition of the majority for each roll-call vote that was cast in the 2004-2009 mandate. Furthermore, on the basis of that, we have calculated a series of trend statistics, as follows:
A) Vote matching between European Political Groups
This measures shows the absolute vote convergence between 2 European Political Groups, which means that it gives the number of votes and the % out of the total amount of roll-call votes in which the political lines of these 2 European Political Groups were identical. Example: 'on civil liberties, EPP matched ALDE in 60% of the votes'.
B) Voting Blocs
This measure is the extension of the above results and shows the relative vote convergence between 2 European Political Groups. This means that the results indicate how often 2 European Political Groups form a block with a third European Political Group, so that one can determine how frequently the number of votes and the % in which the political lines of 2 European Political Groups were identical to the political line of the third party. The reverse figures are also displayed, showing how frequently they do not vote together. Example: 'on Foreign Affairs EPP voted together with ALDE AND differently from PES in 55% of the total number of votes'.
C) Majority formation
Each time a vote is cast, we record the way in which each European Political Group (its majority) voted on the one hand and the result of the vote (adopted or rejected) on the other hand. We then compare to see which European Political Groups were on the winning side, and each of the European Political Groups on the winning side are considered to be part of the "winning coalition". Example of result: 'A winning coalition was formed by EPP+ALDE+UEN'.
Loyal or Rebellious behaviour of national groups inside European Political Groups: at each vote, we calculate if the political line of each national group (its majority) within an European Political Group matches the political line of the Group as a whole. If it does, then that national group is considered Loyal, otherwise it is considered Rebel.
Attendance record
VoteWatch.eu has collected data regarding the attendance record of both current and former MEPs in the 2004-2009 legislature. At the moment, the data displayed on the website refers only to the attendance to plenary sittings and voting taking place either in Strasbourg or the part-sessions held in Brussels. This information will shortly be extended to cover more activities such as attendance and votes in the MEPs' relevant Committees.
In order to determine if a Member of the European Parliament attended the work in the Plenary on a specific day, we first check the attendance registry. If he/she signed the registry, then automatically becomes „present" in our database. If he/she is not found in the attendance registry, then we also check whether he/she attended at least one of the roll-call votes that were cast that day. If he/she attended at least one vote, then automatically becomes 'present on that day' in our database. For each MEP, we have calculated the percentage of days he/she was present from the total number of days in the plenary. For those MEPs who left the European Parliament before the end of the mandate, or became MEPs at a later stage than the elections in 2004, we have of course only included their attendance during the relevant period. All MEPs who became Members at a later time (not right after the elections) or left the EP before the end of the mandate are indicated with a star ("*").
Members of the European Parliament who have been active for less than 3 months are not included in any of our calculations of attendance. Members who attended less than 100 votes are not included in the loyal/rebel scores.
Information about Members of the European Parliament who are absent for longer periods of time (due to for example maternity leave, illness, etc.) is not available from the European Parliament. We have included information regarding absences where we are aware of it. If any Members of the European Parliament wish to bring our attention to additional cases where the statistics need further clarification/consideration, we will welcome such information and immediately update the information (but we will make sure any changes are explained where relevant on the the website).
We will shortly elaborate on the attendance information by making distinctions between attendance to the plenary for the whole day (by signing in the registry), attendance in voting, and attendance to relevant Committees and will include these as three separate categories on the website.
Amendments of reports
The Members of the European Parliament can be involved in the drafting of amendments to policies that the Parliament's plenary as a whole has to make a decision on (whether it supports it or not). The amendments refers to the suggestions for changes to these policies/reports, and are one of the activities that the Members have as a way to influence EU policy-making.
Speeches in the plenary
Under each MEP's profile we show how often they give a speech in the Plenary. Speaking time is allocated in proportion to the size of each European political group and each national party delegation. MEPs use the speaking time to either explain a position, make a statement or raise awareness around an issue.
Parliamentary questions
MEPs can ask questions to the European Commission or to the Council of the European Union (where the governments are represented through their ministers). We show how many times an MEP have raised an issue in the list of activities under their individual profiles.
For further information please contact us as secretariat@votewatch.eu.
