The European Parliament put to the test by COVID-19: voting dynamics and coalition patterns of the EP’s first response to the global pandemic

ABSTRACT

Despite its tangible role in shaping the European Union’s response to the global pandemic, observers seem to have systematically disregarded the role of the European Parliament (EP) in the crisis, by primarily focusing their attention on the European capitals, the inter-governmental institutions, and the coordinating role of the European Commission. The contribution of the EP cannot be ignored also given its unique representative role, its direct democratic legitimacy, and its increasingly relevant role in the Union’s decision-making process. This article has the ambition to identify the key determinants behind the legislators’ voting behaviour and coalition patterns in the EP in the context of the first response to the COVID-19 crisis, by capturing the tension between partisanship and nationality. To do so, it proposes a set of hypotheses addressing legislators’ voting dynamics and patterns of cooperation and conflict in the EP. The analysis is based on votes held on 80 amendments to the April 2020 Joint motion for a resolution on ‘EU coordinated action to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences’. The analysis confirms patterns in lines with the expectations of the study.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• European parliament
• voting behaviour
• party groups

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. More details about the plan are available at the following link https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/health/coronavirus-response/recovery-plan-europe_en.

2. The text of the resolution is available at the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/RC-9-2020-0143_EN.html.

3. Under the agreement the Commission will be able, for the first time, to borrow up to €750 billion on the markets in the direction of debt mutualization.

4. Hix and Noury (2009) and Hix and Høyland (2013) demonstrate that MEPs’ voting behavior in non-legislative votes addressing politically significant or domestically sensitive issues does not sensibly differ from the dynamics that characterize their legislative votes.

5. The minutes of the debates are available at the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2020-04-16-ITM-017_EN.html.

6. The number has been reduced to 705, as a result of Brexit, in January 2020.

7. Party groups in the 8^th EP include the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), the Renew Europe Group (RE), the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) (EPP), the Left group (GUE-NGL), Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (G-EFA), the Identity and Democracy Group (ID), and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR).

8. Domestically sensitive issues refer to policy areas or specific policies that assume particular significance within specific national contexts.

9. Accordingly, party groups are expected to present, on average, a higher level of cohesion than national delegations.

10. Keeping the other factors constant, the level of cohesion of national delegations is likely to grow in these occasions.

11. The votes have been retrieved from the Minutes of proceedings available at the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/PV-9-2020-04-16-RCV_EN.pdf. The author is extremely grateful to Mr. Gadir Mamedov for the invaluable help in the process of data mining.

12. According to art. 190 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, ‘the vote shall be taken by roll call if this is requested in writing by a political group or Members reaching at least the low threshold at the latest the evening before the vote unless the President sets a different deadline ’. While the RCVs represent only a portion of all the votes cast by the plenary, according to the Rules of Procedure introduced in December 2019 (art. 188), when deciding on the basis of a report, Parliament shall take any single and/or final vote by roll call. The RCVs are usually called by the party groups (Carrubba et al. 2002; Høyland 2010; Hug 2016) either to foster cohesion within their ranks or to expose divisions within others’ ranks.

13. Only bills with the model voting option lower than or equal to 90% have been included.

14. There are two major methods of clustering, namely, hierarchical clustering and k-means clustering. Here the former is preferred because this method allows the researcher to identify each phase of the process of segmentation, thereby delineating distinct subgroups (if any) within a broader cluster. Hierarchical clustering is represented by a two-dimensional diagram known as a dendrogram, which illustrates the fusions (upwards) or divisions (downwards) made at each successive stage of analysis and defined by the degrees of similarity.

15. The data of the vote are available at the following link https://www.votewatch.eu/en/term9-eu-coordinated-action-to-combat-the-covid-19-pandemic-and-its-consequences-joint-motion-for-resoluti-108.html.

16. The minutes of the debates are available at the following link https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/CRE-9-2020-04-16-ITM-017_EN.html.