10 Responses to “How effective is your MEP?”

1. 
   EU Law

   07.04.2008 at 23:58 | Permalink

   Thank you for the information on this MEP website. It’s very interesting. Though, being German, I was shocked to find out that Silvana Koch-Mehrin attends only 15% of the sessions.

2. 
   Jon

   08.04.2008 at 07:08 | Permalink

   Be careful with the Koch-Mehrin figures – she has been pregnant during this parliamentary term and hence has not been present. Have a look at this article about parental leave and the EP and the case of Ã…sa Westlund.

3. 
   Ralf Grahn

   08.04.2008 at 09:34 | Permalink

   Jon,

   Thank you again for picking up an interesting aspect of pan-EU interest.

   As I suppose we were in agreement about in an earlier thread: Blogging makes a difference, for politicians, too.

   So they should beat a path to your mousetrap … or how the saying goes

4. 
   James Stevens

   08.04.2008 at 10:34 | Permalink

   Jon,

   I’d have to agree that plenary attendance is indeed a very crude measure of MEP effectiveness and in some cases probably more related to collecting daily allowances than anything else.

   On effectiveness, I think we need to be clear about what kind of effectiveness we are talking about as it could mean different things depending on what one expects an MEP to do. Some ideas…

   - issues/policy effectiveness: some MEPs are effective in Parliament in having an impact on legislation due to their indepth knowledge of a specific policy area. For example Richard Corbett on rules and internal machinations. Others are effective due to their wide range of knowledge and interests. As a measure one could look at number of reports written, amendments tabled etc.

   - party effectiveness: some MEPs are extremely adept at using their position in the Parliament to work within their national party and European political group. As a measure, perhaps the positions held in the national party, e.g. are you on the NEC?

   - constituency effectiveness: some MEPs do a great job of representing those who elected them in spite of the problems of regional lists and millions of voters. As a measure, perhaps the number of local press clippings, the number of meetings they speak at, the amount of PQs about local issues, the number of times they have helped channel funding or assistance to local causes etc.

   In the end, perhaps the most effective MEPs are those that look at each of these areas and decide what kind of MEP they want to be. In essence, they prioritise and specialise.

5. 
   Jon

   08.04.2008 at 10:51 | Permalink

   Issues / policy effectiveness is one of the things I immediately thought about when I saw the IPP website, and whether they could add it.

   While you might get the stats for the reports and opinions written by MEPs, the formula you would have to create would be terribly complex… It would involve:
   (1) Larger groups get more reports than smaller groups
   (2) Some committees have more reports than others
   (3) Some reports are more juicy than others (EP groups scoring system)
   (4) Committee chairs seldom write reports

   You’re right about MEPs trying to determine what sort of representatives they want to be. Problem is I’m then not sure that that makes the EP as a whole cohesive and effective, as so many MEPs see constituency first and work in the EP second.

   Anyway, whatever the shortcomings I’m intrigued by all of this in the run up to the EP elections in 2009.

6. 
   EU Law

   08.04.2008 at 14:20 | Permalink

   Jon, thank you, after posting on here I noticed the same concerning Koch-Mehrin. And I noticed also that the statistics are based on data since only September 2007, so it’s not necessarily representative information in all cases.

7. 
   Doru Frantescu

   09.04.2008 at 13:26 | Permalink

   Hi guys, thank you for checking the http://www.ippro-mep.eu that we run here at IPP. We have also a material in English with more comprehensive information extracted from our data sets, also measuring the rates of convergence of votes (for instance to what extent, in percentages, EPP votes similar with ALDE on Forreign Affairs issues), and also clear rankings by countries concerning attendance and loyalty. Just write an email and I’ll be happy to send it to you. Best,

   Doru Frantescu

8. 
   Jeremy Hargreaves

   10.04.2008 at 12:01 | Permalink

   I agree this is a very interesting and useful site. A good similar site for the UK Parliament is the truly excellent theyworkforyou.com which makes huge amounts of information available, as well as things like email alerts which means if you are following a particular issue or Member then you can hear about anything relating to them within a few hours.

   theyworkforyou.com seems to have had quite an impact on the way UK MPs work, or at least think about how they work – for example some have been ridiculed for never putting down any Parliamentary Questions, while others have got quite a profile from the statistics derived through it. There’s a debate about whether the impact of this has been wholly positive, in terms of working methods – but I certainly agree that anything that highlights the work of the EP, and generate interest in what MEPs do, is a good thing. (And of course I’m delighted that it proves again that the UK Lib Dem MEPs are the most cohesive!).

9. 
   EU Law

   18.04.2008 at 20:19 | Permalink

   BTW today I got information by Silvana Koch-Mehrin. She said she’s back in the Parliament now. She was gone until the beginning of April 2008 this year.

10. 
    Laurent

    17.04.2009 at 09:26 | Permalink

    Another initiative to follow the votes at the European Parliament: epvote.eu

    Additional data and features are being added continuously. We aim at having an informative website for the new turn.

    So feedback is more then welcome!

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.