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Abstract: The article discusses the significance of the European Parliament elections for Eastern Europe and the potential impact on democracy promotion initiatives. The European Parliament has been actively engaging with citizens through platforms like TikTok and Instagram to highlight the importance of these elections. However, there are concerns that the EU's support for liberal groups in non-EU countries may inadvertently reinforce autocratic regimes. The article emphasizes the need for a balanced approach to democracy support that takes into account the specific contexts of each country. The M.O.R.D.O.R. project aims to enhance knowledge about authoritarian regimes and provide recommendations for EU foreign policy stakeholders.
Abstract: The Qatargate scandal has given the European Parliament (EP) an unusual degree of media attention which its leaders would have done well to avoid. Some commentators have argued that in a parliamentary assembly there will always be members ready to be corrupted, and that there is no reason to pay too much importance to the incident. However, far from being anecdotal, the Qatargate scandal has been an opportunity to recall that the challenges of lobbying at EU level in terms of influence, transparency and probity are immense. In this paper we first recall how the EP has repeatedly addressed the question of interest representation and MEPs behaviour since the early 1990s, and why this discussion is not an easy one. Then, we explain how it was reactivated after the 2019 European elections and how the Qatargate has pushed for reforms that seemed to be stuck. We further focus on the initiatives taken by the EP to change its internal rules as well as the creation of a new EU body in charge of ethics at inter-institutional level. Finally, we argue that the case is far from closed and that, although presented as ambitious, those reforms are not considered up to the challenges by many experts and actors.
Abstract: Citizens' ability to hold corrupt politicians accountable is a key feature of democratic political systems. Particularly in the European Union (EU), such accountability mechanisms are often argued to malfunction due to the EU's complicated and opaque institutional structure, which could compromise voters' basic abilities to detect political malpractice in Brussels. Putting EU voters' attentiveness to the test, we provide quasi‐experimental evidence of the causal effect of a recent corruption scandal in the European Parliament. Leveraging an ‘Unexpected Event during Survey Design’ identification strategy in France and Germany, we document a sizeable negative effect of the so‐called Qatargate scandal on public trust in the European Parliament (...).
Abstract: Research on transparency in the EU and at the European Parliament, in particular, has extensively examined the adoption and implementation of transparency initiatives as well as the conditions under which interest groups have access to and influence on EU policy‐making. However, the question of whether Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are transparent regarding their interactions with interest group representatives has been overlooked by the literature. This study addresses the question of the conditions under which MEPs are more likely to provide information about their meetings with interest groups. The study engages with institutional theory by emphasizing that formal and informal rules incentivize MEPs' behaviour. Drawing on a dataset on MEPs' reports on their meetings with interest group representatives, the study demonstrates that procedural rules, party's position on the cultural dimension and the national corruption tradition affect legislators' propensity to disclose information about their meetings with interest groups.
Abstract: This article focuses on political donations received by the European Parliament. It shows that mapping political donations to international parliamentary institutions is necessary to form regulations that would ensure the institution's integrity and minimize political corruption. Abstract International Parliamentary Institutions (IPIs) increasingly welcome non-state actors (NSAs) within their policy-making procedures. Political donations are an important tool in NSAs' lobbying toolbox that has been well researched at the national level. Nevertheless, we know little about the links between NSAs, IPIs and political finance. Employing the European Parliament as an exploratory case-study, the article meticulously assesses micro-level financial donor data (...).
Abstract : Du 6 au 9 juin 2024, tous les citoyens de l’Union européenne sont appelés à voter pour élire les 720 députés qui composeront, pour un nouveau mandat de cinq ans, le Parlement européen. Bien que dotés de pouvoirs désormais importants pour élaborer les lois et réglementations européennes, les eurodéputés sont peu visibles et peu mis en valeur à l’échelle nationale. C’est en particulier le cas en France où cette élection (dont le mode de scrutin est mal connu des électeurs) est souvent détournée en match de politique intérieure visant à distribuer les bons et les mauvais points aux élus et dirigeants politiques nationaux. Comme on a pu le constater dès le début de l’année, la cuvée 2024 ne fait pas exception, les mécontents de la politique gouvernementale menée en France appelant à sanctionner l’équipe en place et, inversement, le gouvernement et la majorité parlementaire invitant à rejeter les partis éloignés de leur ligne politique (...).
Abstract: The European Parliament is considered a solution to the democratic deficit because the citizens of the EU directly elect it. This article aims to examine the validity of this claim. Concerning representativeness, the focus is on the homogeneity of rules and procedures used for electing the members of the European Parliament (MEPs). This homogeneity is considered as necessary for the EP to represent the EU citizens. Thus, it aims to assess the impact of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union on the level of homogeneity of the rules used to conduct the 2019 European Parliament elections. This work claims that the European Parliament's role as representative of European Citizens is weakened by the consistent level of heterogeneity characterising the electoral rules used to elect it and that the withdrawal of the UK and the partial redistribution of seats simultaneously increased and decreased the level of homogeneity of the rules used to elect the MEPs.
Abstract: With growing public distrust toward European institutions, Eurosceptic populist radical-right parties make up almost a third of MEPs in the current European Parliament. As part of the larger scholarly debate on populist parties’ success, this article examines intra-party selection logic for the ‘perfect’ populist radical-right MEP candidate. Using original data from participant observation and interviews with Alternative for Germany delegates during the 2018/2019 European Election Assembly, this study suggests that party members were more likely to be selected as candidates if they (1) possessed extensive network with right-wing social movements to strengthen their electoral mobilization; (2) and showed strong commitment to party cohesion and good reputation to fend off accusations of racism and Nazism.
Abstract: In Europe, the multiplication of elections makes the election calendar a decisive issue given the decreasing participatory trend. Turnout is expected to be higher in simultaneous elections, while it lessens if several elections are held over a short period. The saliency of the preceding ballot may also affect participation in the next one. In this article, we argue that these temporal effects are crucial for European Parliament elections due to their second-order nature. We analyse how the position, frequency and nature of domestic ballots affect European Parliament elections turnout since 1979. Our results indicate that the participation level is less affected by the timing of elections than by their overall frequency. The type of preceding election also matters, although not the second-order nature per se.
Abstract: This article presents an empirical analysis of how the European Parliament's eighth legislature mobilised to shape European Union (EU) foreign policy towards Turkey during the refugee crisis. On a conceptual and methodological level, we propose an analytical framework based on the mechanism of political leadership to trace the EP's role in two specific areas of EU foreign policy towards Turkey: enlargement and cooperation on migration. We argue that EP foreign policy resources allow it to play a political leadership role in this policy domain. Empirically, the analysis feeds into the claim of New Institutional Leadership since it reveals that the informal governance at the time of the refugee crisis favoured the mobilisation of the EP, mainly to protect its institutional prerogatives. The analysis also shows that the EP adopted a contradictory approach to EU foreign policy towards Turkey that affected the Parliament's reputation as the guardian of EU values.
Abstract: In recent decades, an important field of research has emerged concerning the careers of Members of the European Parliament. Due to the specific nature of the European Parliament, the European Union, the multilevel politics and the peculiarity of the supranational political class, it is of particular interest to map and control the regularity of, and changes in, the composition of the European Parliament and the impact over systemic features or policy-making aspects. For this reason, the article presents a new dataset comprising a collection of detailed information about all of the Members of the European Parliament who held office from the first election in 1979 until the latest in 2019. This dataset represents a useful novelty because it is a dynamic tool that allows reconnecting the Members of the European Parliament’s position and responsibilities within the European Parliament to their political background before entering the supranational assembly. Finally, the article suggests possible fields of research in which this type of data could be useful in deepening and consolidating our knowledge about the European Parliament and its members.
Abstract: This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Eurosceptic contestation within the legislative arena of the European Parliament (EP) from 2009 to 2019. Under what conditions do Eurosceptics vote differently from their Europhile peers? The literatures on European integration, party competition and policy types lead us to expect variation in Eurosceptic contestation across policy areas. Drawing on roll‐call votes in the EP, we introduce two new measures of such contestation: Eurosceptic dissent, that is, the extent to which Eurosceptics diverge from the Europhile plurality, and integration polarization, that is, the extent to which Eurosceptics and Europhiles oppose each other as cohesive camps. Our two indicators show that Eurosceptic contestation is particularly pronounced when the EP votes on cultural, distributive and constituent issues. When voting on redistributive policies, in contrast, dissent and polarization are curbed by national and ideological diversity.
Abstract: Scholars agree that securitized discourses mainly drive migration policy. However, to fully understand the migration discourse, it is necessary to look also at the discourse legitimating the acceptance of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Namely, how Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) legitimate the potential acceptance of migrants in EU plenary debates within the human security speech acts that prevail in the European Parliament plenary debates. By exploring legitimation categories, I show that human security discourse might remain part of the exclusion process, similarly to other security concepts and discursive strategies. In other words, the results show that in human security speech acts, MEPs evoke the “language of exclusion practices” containing the victimhood trope and building the “hierarchy of vulnerability.” Moreover, MEPs' efforts to legitimize immigration in this way might be counterproductive. In particular, the article discusses whether attempts to elicit grand emotions such as pity or shame helps to attract.
Abstract: Research on dynamics within the European Parliament frequently draws on group‐based explanations – such as parties and national affiliations – for the behaviour of its members. Hence, there is a growing interest in the question of how policy issues trigger the salience of group memberships and whether partisan or national group memberships – and which of them – rank higher when voting on issues. This article provides answers to these questions by presenting empirical evidence on the group memberships that are decisive for the voting behaviour of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). In theoretical terms, it introduces the social‐psychological perspective on social identities to European Union (EU) parliamentary research. Methodologically, the article relies on a qualitative comparative analysis of voting results in three resolutions of the 9th EU legislative term. The findings emphasize a hierarchy of salient social identities and reveal that some national and some partisan identities are stronger than others in the European Parliament.
Abstract: The rise of Euroscepticism has shifted the structure of political conflict in the European Parliament (EP) towards an increasingly dominant pro-/anti-EU divide. Focusing on the hard case of EU enlargement, this article examines changes in MEPs' discursive and voting patterns over the past two EP mandates. It combines two original datasets containing MEP statements during plenary debates and subsequent roll-call votes to examine the polarisation, cohesion, and consistency of legislative behaviour across different European Political Groups. The findings show that soft Eurosceptics drive a deepening of the pro-/anti-EU divide by radicalising in both discourse and vote to join hard Eurosceptics in their firm rejection of further enlargement. Pro-European MEPs, in contrast, show discursive accommodation of Eurosceptic concerns, with a growing inconsistency between sceptical discourse and continued vote-based support for enlargement-related initiatives. A case study of Turkey illustrates these two mechanisms. The findings shed light on the changing dynamics of political competition in the EP and the impact of rising Euroscepticism upon MEPs' legislative behaviour.
Abstract: In March 2022, the European Parliament (EP) condemned the serious situation of journalists and human rights defenders in Mexico through a plenary resolution adopted by 607 votes in favor, 2 against and 73 abstentions. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO)´s reaction was surprisingly hostile, both in form and content, creating a disruption in the way the EP resolutions on Mexico had been received since the entry into force in 2000 of the international agreement governing relations with the European Union (EU). This article provides a comprehensive qualitative empirical analysis of the EP´s resolution and AMLO´s response, as well as of other political actors in Mexico and in the EU. In addition to providing relevant conclusions about the EP’s role as a moral tribune, the article sees to encourage further analysis on the broader relationship between parliamentary actors and international issues, such as human rights protection and press freedom.
Abstract: The European Parliament (EP) as one of the key institutions of the European Union has gained considerable powers over time and often presents itself as a constant gender equality promoter. Whilst gender equality in the EP tended to be analysed in terms of women's descriptive, substantive and symbolic representation, this article shifts the focus to the concept of power itself in assessing gender equality achievements in and through the EP. Applying Amy Allen's conceptualization of power as power to, power over and power with to a critical reading of recent literature, it explores who can exercise power over what in the EP and the consequences for gender equality. The article challenges the EP as a unified gender equality actor and highlights its highly gendered nature in which power over and power to are intertwined, with power to occurring without power over and power with unfolding through alliances and coalitions.
Abstract: In May 2022, the European Parliament (EP) launched a procedure to amend the EU treaties and began drafting a report with concrete reform proposals. In their resolution, EP members explicitly described this as a necessary response to recent crises (notably the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Covid-19 pandemic, and climate change) as well as a follow-up to the Conference on the Future of Europe. However, the stated objectives of the reform, in particular more efficient and democratic EU decision-making, were not new but followed long-standing discourses on deepening EU integration. This raises the question of to what degree the EP’s initiative really reflected a lesson from recent crises—in line with a “failing forward” approach towards EU reform—or rather a “backlog” of reforms which had already been proposed before but whose implementation had been blocked by member states, and for which the crises only represented a window of opportunity (...).
Abstract: The European Parliament (EP) constitutes a prime site of contemporary party politics in Europe. Its seven political groups represent political interests and ideologies beyond specific national interests. Within the groups, national delegations exert considerable power. The research objective of this article is to generate new knowledge about the role of national delegations within political groups. The research material consists of 140 elite interviews with MEPs and staff. The data allow the article to analyse the construction of the role and the importance of national delegations and to focus not just on formal institutions, but also on informal ones which are often outside the reach of quantitative methods and data. The findings suggest that political groups can be divided into different categories. The role and influence of national delegations are strongly governed by informal institutions, in particular when it comes to distribution of leadership positions and policy making.
Abstract: This article questions and analyses the supranational aspirations of the European Union (EU) over its intergovernmental policies. It addresses first nationalism followed by neo-functionalism, supranationalism, and intergovernmentalism; the dominant theories in European integration. The purpose of the study is to reflect the EU’s supranational limitations. Our main research question is to determine whether there is a new form of Europeanism across Europe. The study shows the rising nationalism across Europe, through the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections, and the growing Euroscepticism through public opinion surveys (...).
Abstract: The uniqueness of the European Parliament, as well as the magnitude of impact its decisions wield over member states, are elements that capture researchers’ attention. However, several of this institution’s particularities have made broad analysis of the textual content it produces difficult. This research note presents Vitrine Démocratique, a new, publicly accessible, and centralized database structuring interventions made in the European Parliament starting in 2014, both in their original languages and translated to English. The process by which this high-velocity database was created is presented, as well as a descriptive overview of the contents of this data source, which is continuously updated on a daily basis.
Abstract: Safe and legal access to abortion is precondition for gender equality. Yet, in many EU Member States they remain controversial, endangered or absent. Recently, the European Parliament passed a resolution articulating a defence for a right to abortion in the EU: the Matić resolution. Via an analysis of debates and parliamentary processes around the resolution, this article analyses the different discursive constructions of a right to abortion within the EP by political groups, the different meanings attributed to EU values during abortion debates, and the impact of these constructions on gender equality policymaking in the EP. It found that internal attacks on abortion were increasingly constructed as alien to EU values despite efforts by opponents to reframe such values. Although EU values are undefined, attempts to renegotiate a common EU identity around shared values, even symbolically, are possible because they are dynamic and prone to facilitating unity during crises.
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