EUROPEAN UNION WORLD

 THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: ELECTORAL PROCEDURES

DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF ELECTORAL SYSTEMS ON FEMALE POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

2014 European elections: national rules

Electoral systems

In the Treaty of Paris, it was envisaged that the ECSC should be elected on the basis of a uniform electoral procedure. Similarly, Article 138 of the Rome Treaty included the following provision: ‘The Assembly shall draw up proposals for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure in all Member States’. The Assembly approved such proposals as early as 1960, but found itself frustrated by yet another requirement of Article 138 which gave the deciding voice to the Council of Ministers with the words: ‘The Council shall, acting unanimously, lay down the appropriate provisions . . .’ The idea reappeared once more in Article 7 of the 1976 European Elections Act.

Yet elections are still held on the basis of different states making their own national arrangements. A small but significant change had been made to Article 138 in the Treaty of Amsterdam, for after the words ‘uniform procedure’, it now read ‘in accordance with principles common to all Member States’. The European Parliament endorsed this procedure based on ‘common principles’ in July 1998, and the Council of Ministers laid down the appropriate provisions, thereby revising the Rome Treaty; Article 138 became the new 190. The only common principle underlying the choice of system is that all countries employ one of the variants of proportional representation.

From the description given above, it can be seen that it was always the intention that the Community should have its own democratically elected parliament. For twenty-two years, this objective was thwarted by the more intergovernmental members of the Council of Ministers, originally those representing France but thereafter those representing Britain and Denmark. The reason for these delaying tactics was the knowledge that direct elections would give increased legitimacy and credibility to the deliberations of the European Parliament; that such increased legitimacy would confer an improved status and authority on the EP; and that such an improvement could only be at the expense of the stature and authority of national parliaments. Those who valued parliamentary sovereignty wanted to ensure that the Parliament could be dismissed as being no more than an empty discussion chamber with no constitutional purpose, legitimacy or authority.

It was originally envisaged that all member countries would use the same electoral system, based on some form of proportional representation (PR). However, the UK resisted the arguments and insisted on retaining the British ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system for constituencies in Great Britain, the system remaining in use from 1979 until the elections of 1994. The Blair government, on assuming power in 1997, promised that, in line with other constitutional reforms, they would have a proportional system in place by the time of the 1999 elections. In accordance with that promise, the European Parliamentary Elections Act of January 1999 established an electoral system based on regional a list that was first used in the elections of June 1999.

With the introduction of proportional voting, the UK still does not have a uniform system. Back in 1979, even the most diehard supporters of first-past the-post recognized that the sectarian nature of Northern Ireland politics would cause considerable problems if a majority system of voting failed to give representation to the Catholic minority. Because of this, a single three-member constituency was established to cover the whole province, its three representatives to be elected under the single transferable vote system of proportional representation.

That variation has continued in force despite the 1999 act. All member states are now united in using a proportional system of voting of some kind. Yet, because the UK set a precedent by breaking ranks in 1979, there has been a consequent general failure among the other states to agree on a common system of PR. Most countries use straightforward list systems but others have a preferential vote element. The Republic of Ireland, like Northern Ireland and Malta, uses the single transferable vote and Luxembourg, with six MEPs, has a system whereby each voter is entitled to six votes that can be split between the candidates as they wish. In a number of countries employing a list system of proportional representation, there is a threshold – usually 5 per cent of the votes cast – that parties have to reach before they are granted representation.

The British system adopted for the 1999 and 2004 elections: closed lists

There were strongly differing views over the type of electoral system that should be put into place for Great Britain when proportional representation was finally introduced. Some commentators and politicians supported the single transferable vote because it was used in Northern Ireland. Others wanted a suitable variation on the additional member system, similar to that used for elections to the Scottish Parliament. However, Labour ministers decided that the closed list system generally used in the European Union – for instance, in France, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain – was preferable. It was suggested by some critics that electors should be allowed to indicate preferences on the lists of candidates (the ‘open list’ system, as used in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands) rather than simply vote for the list as a whole. The case for this was debated hard and long but was finally rejected, enabling the doubters to say that the European elections did nothing to reduce the Community’s democratic deficit but represented yet another example of the party leader’s patronage at work.

The provisions of its European Parliamentary Elections Act are that:

The United Kingdom is divided into electoral regions, England having nine, whilst Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each constitute a single region.

There are 78 MEPs elected in the United Kingdom, of whom 64 are for England, 7 for Scotland, 4 for Wales and 3 for Northern Ireland.

The electoral regions in England and the number of MEPs elected for each are: North East (3), North West (9), Yorkshire and the Humber (6), West Midlands (7), East Midlands (6), Eastern (7), South West (7), South East (10) and London (9).

Electors vote for a party list of candidates rather than an individual candidate (the ‘closed list’ system).

Seats are divided between parties according to the proportion of the vote each has gained in the electoral region and are allocated to individuals according to their placing on the party list.

The case for and against the British ‘closed list’ system

The ministerial case as advanced by the then home secretary, Jack Straw, was that the closed list system was widely used on the continent and that if employed in Britain, then some 70 per cent of Union MEPs would be elected in this way, a move towards uniformity in the voting system. He also claimed that the method was a ‘simple, straightforward system which takes individual candidates and allows the public to vote for particular parties. It still asks the electorate to put a single cross on the ballot paper’. Above all, it was the best means of promoting gender equality and getting ethnic minority candidates on the list. He made the point that prior to the 1999 elections, there were ‘no women north of the Humber and in areas with quite a high ethnic minority concentration there are no ethnic minority members’.

‘Closed lists’ are regarded as undemocratic because there is no element of voter choice. Not only is the choice of candidates for the list entirely the responsibility of the party hierarchy, but the very same people also choose the order in which candidates’ names are listed on the ballot paper, thus influencing the chances that named candidates have of being elected or not being elected. In other words the party has complete control of the process, allowing not even party grassroots workers to have a say, let alone the electors.

In the case of the Liberal Democrats, they do allow party members to determine the composition of their list. Labour does not and in spite of the strong denial of such considerations, there has been a widely held view that the New Labour leadership (particularly under Tony Blair) wants to exercise strong control over the Labour list. An open list would enable the voters to express a preference that might be for candidates who are on the left of the party and unsympathetic to the Blair/Brown approach. At the very least, it was certainly an attraction for the former prime minister that closed lists have provided an opportunity to reform and modernise the Labour contingent in Strasbourg. He felt that many Labour members before 1999 were out of touch with prevalent thinking in the country and party.

As for gender representation, the use of proportional voting systems by all member countries has contributed to a better level representation of women at Strasbourg than is true of those legislatures that do not use such systems. Between 1994 and 1999, 27 per cent of MEPs were women and between 1999 and 2004 30 per cent. Sweden and Finland both have high levels of female representation in the Parliament, just as they do in their national parliaments. Overall, Protestant countries with a culture that is sympathetic to gender equality fare well, whereas Catholic and Eastern Orthodox countries where the prevailing view of the female role is more traditional (France, Greece and Italy) have the lowest proportions. The House of Commons elected in 2005 under a first-past-the-post system has 19.8 per cent women, but of the 78 MEPs the current figure is significantly higher at 25.6 per cent.

After the experience of the 1999 elections, some opponents of proportional representation made the point that the low turnout might be interpreted as evidence that voters did not understand or favour the new proportional system. Yet ‘fair voting’ is often seen by proponents of PR as a stimulus to voter turnout, because it means that all votes actually count towards the outcome.

Euro-elections 2004: a case study

The 2004 election was widely billed in the press as the world’s first continental election. Nearly 349m adults in twenty-five countries stretching from the Atlantic to the border of Russia, from the Mediterranean Sea to Lapland, had the right to place their cross on a ballot form. The sixth direct elections to the European Parliament were second in scale only to those in India. In all, 14,670 candidates – of who one third were women – were contesting 732 seats. Among the candidates was the usual diverse array of colourful individualists: a Nobel Prize winner, an Oscar winner, a Eurovision song contest winner, a supermodel, a porn star, assorted TV celebrities and Big Brother finalists. Among the more serious candidates, there were six former prime ministers. Some of the politicians were trying to begin new political careers, others to revive flagging ones.

Despite the repeated pleas from Brussels, in virtually no country were the elections fought primarily on European issues. In most cases, they descended into little more than a referendum on the government of the day. Voters had the chance to cast a protest vote against those in offices and to a lesser extent against the EU in general. In several contests, much of the running during the campaign was made by eurosceptic candidates and parties, noticeably in Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands. Turnout on polling day was generally low, with 45.5 per cent turning out to vote, over 4 per cent less than in the 1999 elections. Across the continent, the mood of the voters seemed to range from apathy to resentment. The findings of Professor Rose of the Swedish think tank IDEA5 suggested that the gap between people voting in national and in European elections stood at 21.9 per cent in the fifteen pre-2004 member states and 29.1 per cent in the ten new member countries. The latest recruits to the Union whose voters might have been expected to be flushed with enthusiasm for their new common European home had, in fact, the lowest turnouts in the election.

The outcome

Seven political groupings were initially represented in the 2004 Parliament. The elections revealed a pan-European anti-incumbency trend. Incumbent governments of the centre left suffered (as in Germany’s Social Democratic and Britain’s Labour parties), as did those of the right (France’s UMP and Italy’s Forza Italia). In all, in twenty-three out of the twenty-five member countries, the largest party in the national government saw its share of the vote slump. The two governments that escaped the trend, the Greek New Democracy party of the centre right and the Spanish Socialists, were still enjoying something of a honeymoon, having only recently been elected into office. Although most votes appear to have been cast on national lines, they had European consequences. The election confirmed the centre right as the largest group in the European Parliament, followed by the Socialists, a new Liberal and centrist group based on the ELDR and the Greens. All four groups included many committed federalists within their ranks and those parties traditionally in favour of closer European integration formed the largest block in the Parliament.

However, there was also a pan-European trend towards increased support for eurosceptic parties, most obviously in Britain, but also in Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands. In Sweden, a new party, the Junelist, took 14.4 per cent of the vote and won three seats. In Britain, UKIP did even better. However, not all eurosceptic groups fared as well, for the Danish variety lost two seats and the French souverainistes, who have long campaigned against the transfer of powers to Brussels, suffered a sharp decline in their popular vote. The populist anti-European Polish Self-defense party that had been tipped to top the polls came fourth, although a Eurosceptic League of Polish Families came second.

Where the far right was in power, it did as badly as the left did in Germany and Poland.

Nonetheless, if some anti or lukewarm Europeans did less well than anticipated, it remained the fact that there was a larger ‘awkward’ squad in the new Parliament, with broadly eurosceptic parties comprising 10 per cent of all MEPs. The number who opposed the proposed constitution or whose rallying point in the campaign was corruption within the Union constituted a much larger group. Rose estimated the number of ‘euro-awkward’ to be around 200. They are a diverse collection of people of many persuasions, including British Conservatives and Swedish Greens, far rightists and unreconstructed communists, nationalists and populists.

Representation of member states in the European Parliament

MEPs are largely distributed between the member states on the basis of population, meaning that some countries have far more than others. However, when the number of electors per MP is taken into consideration, it becomes apparent that there are huge discrepancies which cast doubt on the democratic basis of euro-elections. 75,000 voters in Luxembourg qualify for an MEP, whereas 833,100 in Germany only get the same level of representation. Small states are the winners in this imbalance.

Before 1994 Germany had the same number of MEPs (eighty-one) as France, Italy and the UK, despite having a much larger population. As from 1994, when the rise in population caused by German reunification made an increase in the number of EP seats necessary, the new distribution of seats meant that larger member states had one MEP for each 500,000 electors. At the other end of the scale, the smaller member states are proportionately over-represented in an attempt to prevent them being overwhelmed by the larger states in the decision-making process, in what Nicoll and Salmon6 have termed ‘a genuflection towards the sovereign status of all’. Further changes were made to cater for the expansion of the Union in 2004. As a result, the United Kingdom lost nine seats and now has seventy-eight. The division of MEPs remains heavily weighted towards the smaller states under the new distribution and is destined to continue to do so.

Role of elected representatives: MEPs

Among the many aspects of the European Parliament that are unknown to the average European citizen is any conception of what an MEP actually does. As is the case with national parliaments, one obvious assumption is that members spend most of their time in the debating chamber. But if this is far from the case at the British House of Commons or other legislatures, it is even less true of Strasbourg or Brussels. Even when commissioners are summoned before Parliament to answer for their area of responsibility or to make a policy statement, very few turn up to listen or question them. An interesting example of this is provided by Matthew Engel’s7 description of Sir Leon Brittan’s appearance before the Parliament in 1994 to announce the new world trade agreement that would replace GATT: In the whole vast near-circular debating chamber there were, officials and flunkeys aside, only a dozen people. The press gallery was almost empty . . . This was not a particular comment on Sir Leon or his subject . . . It is always like this. No one goes to debates, except to speak. No one listens except the interpreters. The point about interpreters is important, as there are twenty-three official languages in the Union. It is very hard to make an impact with a speech when one’s words cannot be understood directly by most of the people present; even the finest speech-making cannot survive the neutral intermediary of an interpreter. As Engel says, ‘oratory, rhetoric and invective all fall flat’.

Few of the British MEPs are known to their electorates. They are, in the words of The Economist, ‘unloved and obscure’.8 However, its researchers noted that just a few had managed to attract media coverage. Labour’s Glenys Kinnock, the Liberal Democrat Chris Huhne and the Greens’ Caroline Lucas achieved more than 100 mentions in the national quality press in the five years of the 1999-2004 Parliament. According to the database search, the vast majority received less than half that number and more than a quarter managed only single figures, two scoring zero.

Such a survey is inevitably flawed, not least because MEPs in remote parts of Scotland and Wales find it easier to obtain a mention in local papers than in London-based broadsheets. But the impression remains that some members are indolent and the work they perform is too specialised or uninteresting to capture the interest of journalists and therefore of their readerships. Several MEPs have been known to complain that even in discussions of the work concerning life in the Strasbourg Parliament; the media prefer to feature Westminster MPs than its representatives.

Daily life as an MEP

Being an MEP is a full-time job. One week in each month is taken up with the Parliament’s session in Strasbourg, and much of the remaining three weeks by committee, Group, or full Parliament meetings in Brussels. On top of all this is the need to keep in touch with constituents at home. The problems of having to travel frequently between Parliament and constituency, familiar to most national MPs, are compounded in the case of MEPs because the distances are much greater. Parliamentary affairs leave only a couple of days each week for MEPs to spend in their constituencies, during which time they must deal with individual constituents, local organisations, local and national politicians, businesses, trade unions, and so on. Because of these pressures, many MEPs have a substantial staff to help them.

Many MEPs choose to make their family residence in Brussels rather than in their home country, to avoid family obligations competing with other pressures in the limited time that members are able to spend in their constituency.

Pay and conditions of the elected representatives (MEPs)

MEPs are paid the same salary as members of their own national parliaments, although they can choose the currency and country in which to receive that salary.

‘A day in the life of a Member of the European Parliament’

A teacher by training, Jean has not found it difficult to adjust to the hectic lifestyle of an MEP since her election in June 1999. However, since her reelection in June 2004, it seems that her work has increased significantly. Jean usually arrives in the office around 8a.m., addressing the matters that need her urgent attention. Today Jean arrives in her Brussels office straight from the Eurostar terminal, collects her weekly agenda and then has a meeting with the shadow-rapporteurs and other MEPs about her Report on Asylum. Jean then speaks at an event organised by her office on the human rights situation in India and chairs the subsequent debate on caste discrimination and what can be done at EU level. Often Jean does not have time for lunch and has to grab a sandwich between meetings. Today she has a working lunch meeting on the Working Time Directive with a group of trade union representatives.

After lunch Jean goes to the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, which will last the whole afternoon. These meetings take place in Committee rooms specially equipped with microphones and headsets so that the team of translators who sit in the fish tank-like booths around the side of the main room can simultaneously translate the discussion into the Community languages. It is quite something to behold.

Once the meeting has finished, Jean returns to the office to check if there are any urgent messages or emails. She jots down a few notes for her speech at the seminar she has to attend tomorrow and then runs out again to meet representatives from AGE Concern at a reception for the launch of the Inter-group on Ageing (of which she is co-president).

When Jean finally arrives back at her small flat situated close to the European Parliament she retires with a detective novel, her preferred literature, for some well-needed relaxation. Although this has been a busy day for Jean, it is quite a typical day for her and while going to receptions or dinners may seem glamorous, it is the ideal place to meet NGOs, lobbyists and MEPs from other political groups and to exchange views in a more informal setting.

Jean divides her time between her London constituency where she frequently attends weekend events, and the Parliament either in Brussels or Strasbourg. ‘No politician I know works 9-5, Monday to Friday,’ she reflects; ‘as an elected person you are a public figure who is always in demand. It’s just frustrating that there isn’t time to pursue every issue raised by the people who voted you in.’ Despite the hectic lifestyle, the constant travelling and the separation from her family, it is clear from Jean’s animated enthusiasm that she relishes even the more challenging aspects of the job. ‘I can’t think of any other occupation with more possibilities for somebody who wants to influence real social and political change.’

Extract taken from the website of Jean Lambert, MEP

These salaries are constantly changing but the lowest-paid representatives at the time of the Fifth Enlargement (Central and Eastern part i) were the Finns and the Spanish, who received less than one-third of the salary paid to the Italians (just under £100,000), by far the best-rewarded contingent. East European members earned significantly less than their Western counterparts. British MEPs came more or less exactly in the middle, those elected in 2004 having at that time a salary of £55,000. MPs enjoying the dual mandate as a member of a national parliament as well as the EP receive their normal parliamentary salary (£60,675 in 2007–8) for their work at home, plus one-third of that salary for their work as an MEP. Because there are such wide variations in salary between MEPs of different nationalities, the Amsterdam Treaty laid down the aim of moving towards a common statute for all MEPs in order to remove disparities. Expenses and allowances are the same for all MEPs and are often very much better than national allowances. Subsistence and travel allowances are particularly favourable since they have to cater for the considerable amount of travelling MEPs must do, not only between Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg but also between the EP and their home country.

The figures agreed as of 1 January 2004 are:

General expenditure (office and communication costs, etc.): (€3,700 per month

Travel allowance: €.67 per km for the first 500km and €.268 per km thereafter

– For journeys to EP meetings within the Union

Travel allowance (including hotel costs) for travel throughout the world when on parliamentary business: maximum of €3,652

Subsistence allowance: £262 for attending meetings within Union (covers both accommodation and meals); £131 per day on top of actual bed and breakfast costs for attending meetings outside the Union

Secretarial assistance: maximum of £12,576 per month.

There are frequent complaints about the amount of money paid out to MEPs and the comfortable lifestyle they are said to enjoy, the tabloids making great play of the ‘Brussels gravy-train’. The pressure of complaints led to the introduction of sanctions by which MEPs may have their allowances cut by half if they do not attend at least 50 per cent of plenary sittings of the EP. Despite any such sanctions, however, it has been claimed that a perfectly honest MEP can, without fiddling the system, bank a six-figure sum for every session he or she spends as a member of the EP. Much of the adverse comment has come from three traditionally eurosceptic countries: Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom. It has centered on the amount paid to MEPs as expenses and the manner in which it is paid. The alleged profligacy derives primarily from the generous flat-rate travel allowance that bears no relation to the expenses incurred in travelling to Brussels or Strasbourg. The price paid is for economy travel, not first class, but nevertheless this value often amounts to significantly more than the actual price of travel with one of the many budget airlines that serve the two centers. A further area of concern is the fact that MEPs’ accounts are currently audited on a spot-check basis, not a universal one. Feeling this to be insufficient, some members voluntarily submit their accounts for a full independent audit annually.

Aware of the need to shed the gravy-train image, members bowed to public pressure on the issue and in December 2003 voted to abolish the lax expenses regime. Under the terms of the proposed deal, they would have had to provide receipts and their salaries would have been liable for national tax on top of a special low rate of EU tax. As a quid pro quo for accepting tougher limits on the perks, MEPs were to receive a hoist in salaries that in future were to be standardized across the Union. The standardization would have granted a British member a 30 per cent rise to around £72,000 a year. However, although Parliament had supported the deal, the last word rested with member states’ foreign ministers who in January 2004 baulked at picking up the tab for salary reforms, thus blocking moves to crack down on abuses of expenses. A resolution was adopted in 2005 to equalize salary differences. This is due to come into force in the next Parliament, elected in 2009.

For all the complaints and accusations, it has to be said that the costs of the European Parliament, even with its heavy expenditure on interpreters and translation, are less than half of what is spent in the USA on the House of Representatives. In 2006, the budget allocated for total EP expenditure, including office costs, staffing, buildings and MEPs pay, travel allowances and expenses was €1322m. One area where some suspicion lingers after the corruption scandals in the Brussels Commission, as well as in various national parliaments, concerns the extent of payments that are made to MEPs by lobbyists and interest groups. In order to counter this there is a register of interests on the British pattern that is supposedly completed by MEPs, copies of which are kept in Brussels and Luxembourg. But the register is not kept very assiduously and very few MEPs are particularly scrupulous in declaring their interests. Only the Dutch and British representatives seem to make any serious attempt to declare all their external earnings and allowances.

Use of referendums

Representative democracy is not the only form used in connection with the European Union. The holding of referendums related to EU membership or initiatives is now a major reason for direct democracy on the continent, second only to constitutional matters. The votes have usually been to decide whether or not to join the Union or whether or not to accept some new EU initiative or treaty. In Western Europe, most of the single-issue votes have been ad hoc ones, used to resolve particularly difficult issues which may divide mainstream parties and therefore raise the possibility of fissure or cut across party lines. They may touch on the constitution or on national sovereignty, as on topics such as membership of the euro. The UK’s sudden decision in 2004 to hold a referendum on the proposed constitution for the Union falls into this category, announced as it was during the 2004 European election campaign in order to lessen the impact of ‘difficult’ European issues being discussed.

In several member states, including Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Ireland and Slovakia, it is a requirement of the constitution that constitutional changes should be put to the people in a referendum. Denmark and Ireland referred the question of accession to the EC in 1972, 71 per cent of the Irish voting ‘yes’ to entry, and a massive 90 per cent of the Danes doing likewise. Twenty years later, both countries held referendums on ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, the Danes most famously having to hold a second referendum in May 1993, after having voted ‘no’ the first time. Denmark and Sweden both held a referendum to decide the issue of membership of the euro zone, in both cases the votes saying ‘no’. Since then, there have been several other referendums, either to ratify a new treaty initiative or in the case of new countries, to approve their decision to join the Union (e.g. the Austrian and Finnish ones at the time of the Fourth Enlargement). Most of the recent batch of entrants held referendums to confirm their decisions (e.g. Hungary and Poland).

Despite the growing democratic powers of the European Parliament, the elections of 2004, just like those of ten years earlier, seem to show that the people of the Union as a whole are less enthusiastic about Europe than many of their leaders. Turnout in European elections has always been poor in the UK and reached an all-time low in 1999. However, five years later voters turned out in much greater numbers and the discrepancy between the British and other European figures was markedly less than on previous occasions. Overall in 2004, the figures for turnout were unimpressive, with clear evidence of a serious decline in the long-established member states and even worse performances in the countries that joined the Union in the Fifth Enlargement (Central and Eastern part i). Even when people do vote they are hardly acting out of any sense of belonging to Europe, but rather tending to vote on domestic rather than European issues, mostly in order to show their displeasure with national governing parties.

The electorates of the Union tend to show more interest in referendums than in elections for the European Parliament, perhaps precisely because they are being asked to respond to specific questions that they see as more important in their lives than the abstraction of a distant parliament.