Five years, during the 2009-2014 term of the European Parliament, there has been an increasing trend of Romanian MEPs activity. This is one of the latest conclusions of our research ”MEPs reporting: how are we represented in Europe?” performed by IEDP Qvorum. Reaching its fourth edition, the report contains analysis on the work of Romania’s national delegation in the European Parliament, as well as detailed information regarding the individual activity of each of the 33 Romanian MEPs during a five year term.
The study answers the following questions:
How active is the Romanian delegation in the European Parliament?
How to enable each party delegation?
What are the most influential Romanian MEPs?
How well do Romanian MEPs communicate regarding their activity?
Further on, we will be presenting a synthesis of the research findings.
How active is the Romanian delegation in the European Parliament?
During the first six months of the term (July – December 2009) Romania was situated on the last position when it came to voting (27th position out of 27 EU states), but by the time the final report, regarding the entire term, was done, Romania went up on the 19th position.
The interesting fact is that, in terms of presence – when it came to voting – Romania gave some of the best and worst examples in the entire European Union. Thus, out of the 766 MEPs of all the EU states, Iosif Matula and Cristian Preda are the first two positions in terms of voting presence in Romania. On the other hand, while George Becali was a MEP, he was situated on the last position in the entire European Parliament.
If at the beginning of the term, our delegation had best results when it came to secondary activites, such as parliamentary questions, signing motions for resolutions or holding plenary speeches, a certain growth in terms of more important activities was recently registered. Such activities may have an effective influence on the European legislative process: writing reports (7th position out of 28), opinions (8th position), amending reports (4th position).
Unfortunately, none of the Romanian MEPs have held leading positions in key bodies of the EP, during the 2009-2014 term. No Romanian has occupied a parliamentary committee chair, except for Laszlo Tokes, although it was a purely circumstantial situation. However, Romanian MEPs held three main positions of vicepresidency, vicepresidency of committees and coordinators, in three main political groups of the European Parliament.
Rucsandra Filloreanu, the study coordinator and programme manager of the European Institute for Participatory Democracy – Qvorum explained: Based on available data and the experience in monitoring that The Qvorum Institute has gained over the past six years, we believe that Romania’s influence in the European Parliament is growing. Therefore, the Romanian delegation has strengthened its position and ranks as first among the other European states in terms of parliamentary activities – written reports, opinions, amended reports along with other EU countries with more experience in the European legislature. In the future, Romanian eurodeputies must aim at least one position of committee chairman or member of the political bureau of the new European Parliament.
Details on pages 15-35 of the research.
How does each party delegation activate?
Whilst analyzing the Romanian MEPs, in terms of each party, we chose researching the three most important indicators in our opinion: written reports, written opinions and amended reports.
Romanian representatives from the EPP group (PD-L + UDMR + PMP + PNȚCD) rank first when it comes to written reports (followed by PNL eurodeputies).
The PPE Romanian delegation has a considerable high score dute to the large number of reports written by Monica Macovei (PD-L) in the discharge procedure of various agencies of the Union. Such reports shall be accounted separately by the European Parliament, although practically it represents a single package annually.
In terms of writing opinions, PNL stands on the first position (followed by PSD + PC). On the other hand, members of the PSD + PC delegation rank first when it comes to amended reports, followed by representatives from the PPE group.
When it comes to voting attendance, the PD-L delegation was, so far, the most present and active in terms of votes in the plenary, followed by the PSD+PC, UDMR and PNL delegations.
It is important to note that the PRM MEPs activity is almost nonexistent. They have not prepared any reports and are situated on the last position in terms of voting attendance.
Details on pages 36-39 of the research.
Who are the most influential Romanian MEPs?
Ultimately, we sought to determine who were the most influential Romanian MEPs in this mandate. Clearly, any assessment of this kind involves a certain margin of error generated by selecting and interpreting the weight of criteria and the potential lack of information, especially regarding MEPs who are deficient when it comes to communication.
However, we believe such an approach is appropriate in order to consider the quality of parliamentary activities, not just the quantity. By doing so, we wish to stimulate the implication of the Romanian eurodeputies, in the following mandate, when it comes to more influential activities, such as writing and amending legislative reports, as well as occupying key positions within the political groups and committees. At the same time, the entire activity of the Qvorum Institute aims to discourage the excess of activities whose real importance is lower.
Following our Qvorum analysis, we came to the conclusion that eurodeputies with a certain influence in the European Parliament 2009-2014 term are:
- Marian Jean Marinescu: Vice President of the EP during their mandate and main rapporteur on four legislated reports under the co-decision procedure;
- Adina Vălean: Vice President of the ALDE group and main rapporteur on two legislated reports under the co-decision procedure;
- Adriana Țicău: Vice President of the Transportation and Tourism Committee of the EP and the main rapporteur on three reports legislated under the co-decision procedure;
- Corina Crețu: Vice President of the S & D Group as of 2012 and Vice President of the International Development Committee of the EP;
- Theodor Stolojan: Vice President of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the EP and main rapporteur on two legislated reports under the co-decision procedure;
- Iuliu Winkler: main rapporteur on six legislated reports under the co-decision procedure;
- Monica Macovei: president of the EU-Moldavia Delegation of the EP and main rapporteur on three legislated reports under the co-decision procedure (as well as many other reports on the budgetary discharging procedure);
- Renate Weber: political coordinator of the ALDE Group in the Committee of Civil Liberty, Justice and Internal Affairs of the PE and main rapporteur on a legislated report under the co-decision procedure;
Details on pages 40-213.
How well do Romanian eurodeputies communicate about their activity?
Compared to the early years in office, most of the Romanian MEPs began, in the second part of the mandate, to consider transparency and communication as being important, allocating more resources and being far more interested in this way. Such a development can be attributed to several factors such as:
- The desire to increase political capital in the country, especially near elections of May 2014;
- Pressure from the civil society and national media who increasingly report and ask for explanations when it comes to MEPs behaviour in Brussels and Strasbourg.
We consider the existence of a website or a specialized blog to be fundamental, when it comes to the way MEPs may communicate with the public. Through such an online platform they are able to convey concrete, factual and exact information regarding their activity. Moreover, from our perspective, the usage of social and new media channels is of great importance in this particular case, says Rucsandra Filloreanu, Programme Manager of the European Institute for Participatory Democracy – Qvorum.
In this analysis we aim to highlight those MEPs who are in the online environment with quality informative material or who offer exact data regarding European politics and the activity in the European Parliament, to the citizens.
Who gives examples to follow, in terms of communication?
The analysis highlights a number of best practices that we considered useful to evidentiate in order to encourage other MEPs in using them. Thus:
- They published on their Intenet pages a progress and activity report for a whole MEP mandate 2009 – 2014: Norica Nicolai, Renate Weber, Cristian Preda, Sebastian Bodu, Corina Crețu, Daciana Sârbu, George Sabin Cutas, Victor Boștinaru, Viorica Dăncilă, Rareș Niculescu.
- Mainly uses accounts on social networks such as Facebook for communicating his/her work and activity in the Parliament: Marian Jean Marinescu, Adina Vălean, Daciana Sârbu, Norica Nicolai, Monica Macovei, Minodora Cliveti, Victor Boștinaru, Eduard Hellvig, Elena Băsescu, Petru Luhan.
- Record an active presence on Twitter in terms of issues relating to MEP activity: Eduard Hellvig, Renate Weber, Cătălin Ivan, Petru Luhan, Marian Jean Marinescu, Monica Macovei, Elena Băsescu, Cristian Preda.
- Actively present on Youtube channels: Victor Boștinaru, Cătălin Ivan, Corina Crețu, Petru Luhan, Elena Oana Antonescu, Marian Jean Marinescu, Monica Macovei, Elena Băsescu.
- Publishes on his/her Internet pages weekly/monthly synthesis regarding the principal conclusions of the parliamentary activity in the named range and also the main topics on the agenda of the EP in the near future: Daciana Sârbu, Cătălin Ivan, Minodora Cliveti, Renate Weber, Elena Oana Antonescu, Elena Băsescu.
- Presents on his website and/or blog, in a very clear manner, his own position regarding certain proposals in the legislative process, and explains their impact on Romania and the EU: on behalf of the PD-L delegation: Monica Macovei, Marian Jean Marinescu, Petru Luhan, Rareș Niculescu, Theodor Stolojan; on behalf of the PNL delegation – Adina Vălean, Norica Nicolai, Eduard Hellvig, Renate Weber; on behalf of the PSD+PC delegation: Corina Crețu, Cătălin Ivan, Ioan Mircea Pașcu, Daciana Sârbu, George Sabin Cutaș, Minodora Cliveti, Adriana Țicău, Viorica Dăncilă; the UDMR delegation – Csaba Sogor and gentlemen Cristian Preda (PMP) and Sebastian Bodu (PNȚCD).
- Presents in systematized and automated online channels the way they voted in the European Parliament: Adina Vălean, Norica Nicolai.
- Publishes information on websites regarding groups of visitors from Romania that they have welcomed in the EP: Monica Macovei, Marian Jean Marinescu.
- MEPs from UDMR use social media channels and websites that are mostly translated and presented in Hungarian.
- MEPs such as Claudiu Ciprian Tănăsescu, Ovidiu Silaghi și Dan Dumitru Zamfirescu’s online platforms could not be located.
Details on pages 40 – 213.
This study combines qualitative analysis with quantitative data, based on the research of official documents from the European Parliament and the European information portal that monitors MEPs and their activity: www.votewatch.eu.
The complete material can be downloaded from https://www.qvorum.ro/publication/. Graphics used in this study are, also, available for the public in a separate document (that is downloadable at the same website address (https://www.qvorum.ro/publication/), in order to facilitate the transmission of information in a more attractive visual form.
For more information, please contact:
Rucsandra Filloreanu, Study Coordinator
rucsandra.filloreanu@qvorum.ro
rucsandra.filloreanu@gmail.com, 0721.55.40
