Today’s MEPs voting more on party lines than in 1979

Date: 07/11/02

By Martin Banks

MEPS play a far more active role in the European Parliament today than 23 years ago when the first elections to the assembly took place, according to new research on voting patterns.

It shows that members' average participation in votes rose from 45% in 1979 to 73% last year.

Over the same period, average daily attendance also increased, from 73% to 86%.

Political scientist Simon Hix, co-author of the report on voting patterns, said the findings reflect the assembly's growing importance.

'As the Parliament's powers have increased over the years so too have MEPs' attendance and, particularly, their levels of participation in votes,' he said.

The exhaustive research, also carried out by Professor Abdul Noury, of Université Libre de Bruxelles, studied every roll call vote in the Parliament since 1979 - a total of over 11,500 votes by more than 2,000 members.

The findings show there is now greater 'cohesiveness' with deputies more likely to vote along party lines than in the past.

'What we are seeing is a clear Left/Right split between the two biggest political groups, the European People's Party (EPP) and the Group of Socialists (PES), with voting becoming more partisan and less inter-state,' said Hix, of the London School of Economics.

'Voting now follows the pattern of most democratic parliaments,' he added.

Presenting the report in Brussels yesterday (6 November), Hix predicted that if the Convention on Europe's future agrees to grant more powers to the Parliament this will 'almost certainly' increase the party-political nature of voting patterns.

MEPs play a far more active role in the European Parliament today than 23 years ago when the first elections to the assembly took place, according to new research on voting patterns.