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There are many ways to study the European Parliament. Votewatch.eu analyses roll call votes. Integritywatch.eu looks into side activities and side incomes of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). And political scientists study the European Parliament’s gender balance and many other topics that are of interest to wider or more limited audiences. Anybody who spends time researching, lobbying or […]
In the December 2014 issue of “European Union Politics” there is a paper by Fortin-Rittberger & Rittberger* titled “Do electoral rules matter? Explaining national differences in women’s representation in the European Parliament“ (an earlier version in open access here). Looking mainly at data from 2009 (and 2004), the key question of their paper is, in my summary: Why […]
During the European election campaign, I’ve seen a Jean-Claude Juncker who seemed tired, who did not seem up to speed during the debates with his contenders and who seemed to be disconnected from the party that supported him – the European People’s Party. But the speech (video, extracts from the text) he delivered yesterday let […]
The leaders of states and governments of 28 European countries (Croatia included) are able to agree over a long-term budget worth 959 988 000 000 Euros (in commitments) 11 months before this budget period starts. The leader of the directly elected European Parliament involving 754 members from 27 European countries (plus the Croatian observers) is able […]
The London 2012 Olympic Games are on their way, and on the medal count it’s nation states that matter. Yet, when you look to the agendas of recent EU-level meetings and the matters the EU deals with, you will realise that the European Union is actually directly and indirectly implicated in what’s going on in London. Just […]
Votewatch.eu has been relaunched on Monday, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s time doing so. Put in very simple terms, it’s a website that takes publicly available information from the European Parliament and the EU Council – in particular everything related to votes – and makes it accessible in a way that both […]
In general, I think that Barroso is not the right EU Commission President in these times of crises. He lacks the profile, the passion, the liveliness to convince citizens across the continent to see the value of a common European project, as flawed as it may be in practice. His only luck is that European […]
At the recent Personal Democracy Forum Brussels we already got a sneak preview by Stephen Clark to the new EP Newshub. Now it’s officially out there. As far as I understand the thing, it is supposed to bring together everything said from the inside of the European Parliament – by MEPs, political groups as well as the […]
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 […]
Some weeks ago, the European Commission discussed the upcoming Rio+20 conference on sustainable development (20-22 June 2012). When you read through the minutes of 22 May meeting of the Commission (p. 13-18), one can see that the expectations at EU level are not very high: “[Commissioner Piebalgs] said that the only outcome that the European Union could […]
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