Internal Structures: groups, committees, and offices

Other scholars have gone beyond plenary to investigate the EP’s internal structures.

McElroy says the sheer amount of parliamentary time spent discussing internal organisation is noteworthy (2006:183) and thus it surely warrants investigation. Scholars have revealed important insights about processes occurring inside some of the EP’s internal structures, but as discussed, a more holistic approach has remained elusive.

11 Beyers (2005) found that exposure to the European level does not necessarily lead to supranational role playing and that domestic conditions affect Council officials’ role adoptions, and Lewis (2005) identified a socialisation process based on a logic of appropriateness in the Council rather than the subsuming of national identities.

Firstly, scholars have examined European parties¹². The formation and organisational development of the EP groups is ‘a unique and significant innovation’ (Delwit et al:2004b:7). The recognition of ideological divisions occurred in 1953 with the suggestion committee nominations should represent member-states and political traditions, after which there was a de facto division into three groupings until 1979. A 1953 Rules Committee report emphasised the crucial role of political parties in EP internal organisation and the recognition of the groups by Rule 33 made them a factual and legal reality and they were given finance, secretariats, and offices (Hix et al:2003a). Whilst the number of groups has increased to the current seven (Appendix 2), the party system has institutionalised (Raunio:2006:253). The groups are central to the EP’s organisation and daily functioning.

They set the agenda, compete for goods (e.g. offices, reports, and speaking time), and co-ordinate votes (McElroy:2006, Hix et al:2003b). There has been some work on their historical development and also the role of parties in the EU (Hanley:2007, Hix&Lord:1997, Delwit et al:2004, Bell&Lord:1998, Lindberg et al:2009) and autobiographies are emerging (Watson:2010, Plumb et al:2000). Much academic ink has been spilt defining the EP group structures, debating whether they fit the policy-seeking model, and discussing the NPDs’ role in their development (Bardi:2005, Lord:1998, Lightfoot:2006, Dietz:2000). Definitional and methodological debates have thus hampered further empirical investigations (Bardi:2004:309) and our understanding of the groups as

“organisations” is limited. This project explores the role of the group in MEPs’ everyday practice of politics from the local perspective.

Other internal structures have attracted thriving research communities. The co-decision procedure - the primary procedure through which EU legislation is now created and puts the EP on an equal footing with the Council - has brought attention to the EP’s 20 permanent committees (Appendix 2b). They are said to be the ‘legislative backbone’ of the EP (Neuhold:2007, Burns:2006) where a substantial amount of the EP’s legislative work and real deliberation are done because ‘the EP in committee is the EP at work’

(McElroy:2006:180). The groups, committees, and NPDs are central structures in the internal organisation of the EP and crucial in MEPs’ everyday practice of politics. Corbett et al (2011), Judge and Earnshaw (2008), and Hix and Hoyland (2011) provide extensive

12 There are ‘three faces’ to europarties; national parties are equivalent to Katz and Mair’s ‘party on the ground’, extra-parliamentary organisations to the ‘party in central office’, and the EP groups to the party in

‘public office’ (Bardi:2004:312).

information about these structures, their roles, and historical development. Whitaker (2011) and Ringe (2010) also provide helpful accounts of how these structures interact.

Since 1979, MEPs have been directly elected every five years. They are elected to represent their constituency and lists are drawn up by national parties. Once in the EP, MEPs join (currently one of seven) transnational party groups or remain non-aligned (NI) (Appendix 2). The groups are therefore made up of (currently over 150) national party delegations (NPDs). The current three largest groups are the EPP (European People’s Party), S&D (Socialists & Democrats), and ALDE (the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe).

These groups are led by group Presidents and Vice Presidents and each group has a proportionately sized secretariat to assist them. Each NPD within the group has a leader and they constitute a link between the group and national parties. MEPs are also members of the EP’s twenty permanent committees. They are assigned to committees by their groups and the committees’ composition broadly reflects plenary. The groups assign co-ordinators to each of the committees to co-ordinate their members and their activities within each legislative area. Each committee has a chair and four vice chairs and a rapporteur from the committee is assigned to each piece of legislation the committee deals with (see Ringe:2010:13-23).

Qualitative work on the EP’s committees has produced valuable findings. Neuhold (2001, 2007) found committee votes are often highly consensual and suggests committees have different working cultures and a socialising effect on members who become part of a

‘team’. Ripoll Servent (2013, 2012, 2011) found committee behaviour has ‘matured’ with empowerment. Bowler and Farrell’s (1995) foregrounding paper on committee behaviour identified specialisation with empowerment and an accompanying trend for a greater role of the groups in co-ordinating behaviour. Building on this, McElroy (2006a, 2001) showed how the groups reward loyal MEPs by promoting them in the committee system and Whitaker (2001) investigated interaction between groups and committees by focusing on working groups and co-ordinators. Whitaker (2011) has examined how national parties and MEPs use the committee system to further policy goals, finding national parties, via delegation to NPD leaders, are key players. Mamadouh and Raunio (2003) also argue NPD’s are often gatekeepers of spoils in the groups and maintain control over committee positions and rapporteurships, thus controlling MEP behaviour in this realm (also see Kreppel:2002). They find that some MEPs, particularly rapporteurs, constitute an

important source of information and may have ‘high influence’ on other MEPs’ decisions, and that ‘legislative participation is not equal’ because a subset of MEPs more often receive influential positions.

Academic interest in relais actors, (particularly rapporteurs, shadows, and co-ordinators) is also growing (Farrell&Héritier:2004, Judge&Earnshaw:2011, Høyland:2006, Rasmussen, A:2005,2008a, Whitaker:2001, Costello&Thomson:2011, Yoshinaka et al:2010). To each piece of legislation (report) introduced by the Commission, the EP appoints an MEP from the responsible committee as the rapporteur. Their job is to (1) incorporate the EP’s amendments into the draft proposal; (2) steer the report through the legislative process and speak on its behalf; and (3) to negotiate compromise within the EP between the groups and also to take part in negotiations with the Commission and Council on the EP’s behalf (Ringe:2010:15). Rapporteurs are allocated according to a points and bidding system based on the size of the groups, and negotiations between the groups occur among the co-ordinators. The remaining groups then often each allocate a shadow rapporteur to the report, particularly larger and more contested reports. Shadow rapporteurs were formally recognised in 2009. This system spreads the burden of speaking and negotiating on highly technical reports within the groups. Rapporteurs and shadows attend a number of meetings together and shadows may attend meetings with the Commission and Council (see Corbett et al:2011:157-161). Meanwhile co-ordinators are assigned within the groups for each committee. They speak on behalf of their committee in their group, and are also the main spokesperson for their group in the committee. Whitaker (2001) found the co-ordinators are viewed as influential in the committees but that their degree of influence depends on their personalities. Co-ordinators distribute tasks and reports among the MEPs from their group in their committee, meet regularly with the group presidency and with the co-ordinators from the other groups. Ringe says they crucially work to achieve coherent positions in the committee among their group members, but also work with the other co-ordinators to set the committee’s agenda, discuss votes, and distribute rapporteurships (2010:21). The role evolved in parliamentary practice but was officially recognised in 2009 (Corbett et al:2011:151). Academic research has tended to focus on the distribution and attainment of these positions and assumed their influence rather than exploring how this might be exerted in practice. Finally there is also growing interest in the role of lobbyists as providers of information to MEPs (Rasmussen:2013, Marshall:2010).

1.3.5 Shortcomings and Gaps

This second generation goes beyond plenary and begins to open up the black-box to explore processes occurring in internal structures and a range of important issues. This project contributes to the debates reviewed. It explores the role of the NPD in MEPs’

decision-making process; MEPs’ performance of multiple roles; socialisation as learning to play the political game; and particularly the role of the group in MEPs’ everyday practice of politics. As the structure of this section suggests, the work on MEP behaviour is fragmented. The literature is missing a joined up approach to the practice of politics by MEPs inside this institution, from their perspective.

Coman (2009) reassesses the tripartite relationship between MEPs, groups, and NPDs with a principal-agent framework. He argues the literature does not fully fathom the mechanisms through which the relationships between them work and how the principals exercise influence. He investigates group-NPD conflicts to develop a theory of cohesion based on norms¹³ and external incentives, couched in a supply and demand framework. He argues cohesion is based on intrinsic unity from ideological homogeneity and learned norms (supply-side) and is achieved instrumentally from leadership and institutional levers (demand-side). He found the NPD is the more powerful principal, but that the capacity for both to convince agents is influenced by their characteristics, and therefore further qualitative research into mechanisms and relationships is required (2009:1112). Likewise Yordanova (2011) argues the EP is an institution in need of a theory and also finds we are missing an ‘elaborate theory’ of the links between these actors despite this being

‘indispensible’ in explaining the rising influence of the groups. We need to further understand how group lines are constructed and the role of the committees in group cohesion (2011:608). I argue that Ringe (2010) has gone a long way in beginning to address this deficit.

13 Bowler and Farrell (1999) found the EP has ‘courtesy’ but not ‘parliamentary party loyalty’ norms and suggest that, because norms require repetition and communication, languages and high turnover may mean the EP is not a conducive environment for norms to establish.