Jun
20122 comments
Statistics: Questions from the EU Parliament to the Commission
According to the 2011 Annual Activity Report (p. 24-25) of the Commission’s Secretariat General, the European Parliament has asked 12.093 questions – 16 questions per member in average – to the European Commission in 2011, doubling the figures from 2007 (6066 at the time). 984 of these questions were so-called “priority questions” (3 weeks deadline instead of 6).
Because of the high number of questions, the Commission has introduced in 2011 a 20 line limit for written replies, it writes in the Activity Report. Still, the Commission managed to reply to only 62% of the normal questions and only 23% of the priority questions in time.
In case it’s of interest: Here’s the list of 2011 questions on the Parliament’s website. Here are the one’s from 2012.
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It’s important to look at the substance of the questions as well. More and more questions are asked by eurosceptic Members, whose sole aim is precisely to waste the Commission’s time and score cheap points with their constituents by mocking the EU. Some of them also ask 6 2-line questions instead of one well-structured, thorough question; it’s a cheap cheat to inflate one’s number of written questions. So even though the numbers have increased, a qualitative analysis should also teach some interesting lessons.