Website exposes MEPs' voting records ahead of EU poll[fr][de] 

The VoteWatch.eu project – which seeks to boost the transparency of EU decision-making and improve the quality of debate - collates publicly available attendance, voting and activity data on MEPs on a single, searchable portal. 

The project "provides detailed information about parliamentarians' voting records and formal political activities – from committee work to parliamentary reports – and includes easy-to-access information on the political coalitions that are formed around policy issues," reads a statement on the website. 

"We're not campaign-oriented, party-political, or receiving any money from the EU institutions or government organisations," explained project leader Sara Hagemann of the European Policy Centre (EPC), a Brussels-based think-tank. "All the info is publicly available, but it's difficult to find. We've collated it all," she said. 

Users can look up MEPs' individual voting records or access voting data according to nationality or political group affiliation. The search tool allows users to identify whether an MEP voted with or against his or her government or political group's line on a particular issue. 

"Cohesion scores" displayed alongside the results allow for comparisons with members' previous votes on similar issues or alignment with the party line, allowing users to track how the positions of their MEP or a political group have evolved over the years. 

"There are shifting coalitions in the European Parliament, just like the shifting coalitions in the US Congress," said Simon Hix of the London School of Economics, another of the site's developers. 

'No naming and shaming' 

Hix was quick to stress that the information on VoteWatch.eu is purely objective. "This is not a naming-and-shaming site, and I think it'll be difficult to use the site for this. It is not subject to any editorial manipulation. It means people can now use the information that the Parliament is providing. Before, this was not the case." 

One drawback of the website is that it can only track roll-call votes, and not electronic or show-of-hands ones. "But all the most important votes, and all those that involve lobbying, are roll-call," Hix said. 

Indeed, Guillaume McLaughlin, a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) secretariat, said "the European Parliament has decided that all final votes will be roll-call votes anyway," adding that "political groups will probably use [the site] to see what their members are doing". 

Site 'must not hide' EU institutions' failings 

But EU Ombudsman P. Nikiforos Diamandouros warned that the initiative must not be allowed to hide the European Parliament’s own communication troubles, and especially not those of the Council. 

"Citizens will not be satisfied until all legislative deliberation is made public," said Diamandouros, expressing his belief that with the upcoming Swedish EU Presidency committed to improving transparency, the issue is "likely to acquire even more importance in the years to come". 

Council set for similar scrutiny

The project's initiators even suggested that a similar system could be applied to the EU's Council of Ministers, which represents the Union's 27 member states.  

"Scrutiny of the Council's activities by national parliaments is not straightforward. Plenty of data is available, but its quality is limited," said the EPC's Hagemann. 

"Voting records are blacked out, and don't say which countries were for or against," she said, before announcing that VoteWatch.eu will be expanded late this year or early next to include information on governments' decision records in the Council of Ministers. 

"Over the next half year, we'll look into presenting [the Council data] in a similar way. But it will have to be done differently, and we'll need the [Council] secretariat's cooperation," Hagemann said. 

 Calling on the Council to act to improve transparency, Guillaume McLaughlin, a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) secretariat, said "the Council gets off scot-free here because similar data doesn't exist". 

"The European Parliament will get a barrage of criticism as a result of VoteWatch.eu," McLaughlin predicted. 

Refuting claims that the Council is failing on transparency and suggesting welcoming the news that a similar scheme is in the pipeline for its own decision-making, David Galloway of the Council secretariat said "Brussels is one of the most transparent cities on earth, and in fact, many of the Council's deliberations are made public". 

Financial Times journalist Tony Barber said VoteWatch.eu "looks very impressive and user-friendly, which is encouraging," adding: "A similar kind of study for the Council would be great." 

Another journalist said the website would be good "for finding out whether the Liberals are more likely to vote with the PES [Party of European Socialists] or [centre-right] EPP-ED after the next elections, which will be more important than who wins". 

Hailing the launch of the tool, EU Ombudsman P. Nikiforos Diamandouros said the best way of increasing trust in the Union was to improve transparency of decision-making. "Lack of transparency in the legislative process, alongside difficulties in accessing documents, is by far the most common complaint I hear from citizens," he said. 

"Transparency did not feature highly on the EU agenda until recently, but it's at the forefront now. The Access to Documents Regulation was a key landmark, because it made openness the rule and secrecy the exception. But the situation is still far from perfect," Diamandouros said. 

Expressing support for the initiative, Jana Mittermaier, who heads Transparency International's EU office, said the use of new media would help improve transparency. "I would love to see a similar scheme for the Council," she added. 

"Initiatives like VoteWatch.eu and farmsubsidy.org show how difficult it is for citizens to access the information being provided by the EU institutions, despite the significant steps they have taken recently," Mittermaier said. 

"The Council is extremely difficult. You can get such information if you ask for it, but the voting records are blacked out," she continued. 

Referring to the joint lobby register launched by the Commission and the Parliament as a "very important tool" as well, she nevertheless warned that there are problems with it. 

"We encourage all interest representatives to register and use it. An inter-institutional register will only work if all the institutions actively use it too, thus making registration quasi-mandatory," she said. 

Regarding the Council, Mittermaier saw "no reason why [it] shouldn't use the lobby register and comply with access to documents rules". "Let's be honest: they are lobby targets too, and they have a lot of catching up to do [on transparency]. 

Daniel Pentzlin of Friends of the Earth Europe, speaking on behalf of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation (ALTER-EU), another transparency NGO, described VoteWatch.eu as a "great tool for boosting transparency". 

"Including former affiliations of MEPs in the current archive of previous voting behaviour in future would be very useful for identifying revolving door issues," Pentzlin said.