DETERMINANTS OF MEP VOTING IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

In the majority of recorded voting situations, the MEPs vote in line with their European party group. Individual party groups are not equally cohesive, but the general rate of party group cohesion is, nevertheless, surprisingly high. Voting behaviour on the European Parliament is thus mainly based on ideological party competition between the party groups. If MEPs were grouped together on the basis of nationality, the cohesion of the resulting groups would generally be far below the level achieved by the existing party groups.

Although nationality as such is not found to have a very significant impact on MEP’s voting behaviour, studies suggest that national parties are influential players in the European Parliament. First of all, MEPs from the same national party, forming a national party delegation, generally vote together. More importantly, national parties have the means to turn their MEPs against the party group leadership if necessary. The potential power of the national parties over their MEPs derives from the fact that the primary goal of most MEPs is to be re-elected as an MEP or to return to domestic politics. As national parties regulate the selection of candidates for the EP and also largely determine the future trajectory of the MEPs’ careers on the domestic stage, the MEPs have a strong interest in demonstrating their loyalty to the national party and its leadership. Furthermore, survey results suggest that MEPs generally identify more closely with their national parties than with their party groups, even though the differences are not very significant. Consequently, facing conflicting demands, the MEPs have stronger incentives to follow the national party line than to bow to the pressure from their party group.

Determinants of MEP Voting

The distance between the ideal policy position of an MEP’s national party and the ideal policy position of his/her European party group is crucial. The greater the distance, the more likely it is that an MEP will follow his/her national party and defect from the European party group line. Policy distance, however, is not the only important factor in the equation. Although national parties have the power to make their MEPs rebel against the party group, such a move can be detrimental as it potentially hurts the reputation of the defecting MEPs and the national party delegation within the party group. While MEPs are generally allowed to vote differently from their party group if they notify the group in advance, most party groups strive for cohesion, which means that such behaviour is not desirable. MEPs are thus unlikely to incite a rebellion every time a difference of opinion between party and party group arises. Instead, they will pick their battles carefully, concentrating on issues of particular salience to their national parties. The issues that the national parties see as central depend on the domestic context.

Apart from the salience of the issue in question, studies suggest that the electoral cycle and the individual parties’ position in domestic policies (i.e. when they are in government or in opposition) as well as the nature of the legislative procedure also affect the extent to which national parties seek to control or consult their MEPs. National parties pay closest attention to their MEPs right before and after European Parliament elections: before the elections in order to hinder the MEPs from deviating from the party line and thus hurting the party electorally, and after the elections in order to monitor the behaviour of possible new MEPs. As for the domestic government-opposition divide, existing research argues that MEPs whose parties are represented in the national government are more likely to face pressure from their home parties than MEPs from opposition parties. This has to do with the EU’s institutional architecture. Governing parties are represented in the Council of Ministers, which is deeply involved in drafting EU legislation. Once the European Commission and the Council have reached an agreement on a legislative proposal, the governments have little interest in seeing the MEPs vote down or substantially amend the proposal. There is thus a strong incentive for the governing parties to ensure that “their” MEPs follow the government’s line. This effect seems to be even stronger if the issue in question has been, or is, subject to domestic parliamentary scrutiny.

Finally, national parties can be expected to observe their MEPs most closely when the European Parliament has the most influence over the matter at hand. Consequently, from the point of view of national parties, issues dealt within the framework of the consultation procedure should be the least interesting, as the European Parliament’s  opinion in such cases is not binding. On the other hand, when an, issue is subject to the ordinary legislative procedure or the consent procedure, national parties are likely to pay more attention to their MEP’s actions. The power of national parties to control their MEPs varies according to the electoral rules applied in the different member states. The more a national party can influence the possibilities of its MEPs to be re-elected, for example, through closed candidate lists or centralised candidate selection procedures, the more likely the MEPs are to take the views of their national parties into account. At the same time, the personal career plans of the individual MEPs also seem to count. Young MEPs are most likely to seek a move back to the domestic arena at some point in their career, which makes them more prone to follow their national party line.

All in all, there is little empirical research on the actual form(s) and degree of interaction between national parties and MEPs. A pioneering study on the subject suggests that contacts have both intensified and institutionalised as the European Parliament has become more powerful. However, closer interaction is generally limited to situations where issues of national importance are at stake, and even then only a minority of national parties tries to control their MEPs by resorting to explicit voting instructions. On the other hand, such voting instructions might not be necessary anyway, as the MEPs have a strong ‘attitudinal’ link to their party.

To summarize, the existing research suggests that in many ways the European Parliament functions similarly to the legislative bodies at the national level, with cohesive parties that compete with one another on an ideological basis. However, national parties have the means to break this cohesion in questions that they consider to be salient from the domestic point of view. This is the way that national politics enter the European arena. As far as the nature of party competition within the European Parliament is concerned, two dimensions have been identified as crucial: the traditional left-right dimension, which generally structures national party politics as well as, to a lesser extent, a pro-integration- anti-integration dimension, which is related to the speed and scope of European integration and the power and resources of the EU institutions. However, as there is no government-opposition divide within the European Parliament, coalitions and cleavages are bound to change constantly. As a result, parties that sit in the same coalition government in the national capital can easily find themselves on opposite sides of a tug of war in the EP.