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Collection Highlights

European Parliament Ascendant: Parliamentary Strategies of

Self-Empowerment in the EU Adrienne Héritier

The French Parliament and the European Union: Backbenchers

Blues Olivier Rozenberg

International Populism: The Radical Right In The European

Parliament Duncan Mcdonnell

Political Advertising in the 2014 European Parliament

Elections 1st Edition Christina Holtz-Bacha
Central and East European Politics: From Communism to
Democracy Sharon L Wolchik

Central and East European politics : from communism to

democracy Fourth Edition. Edition Curry

Political Communication and European Parliamentary

Elections in Times of Crisis: Perspectives from Central
and South-Eastern Europe 1st Edition Ruxandra Boicu

Opposing Europe in the European Parliament: Rebels and

Radicals in the Chamber 1st Edition Nathalie Brack (Auth.)

The Eurosceptic 2014 European Parliament Elections: Second

Order or Second Rate? 1st Edition Julie Hassing Nielsen
PALGRAVE STUDIES IN EUROPEAN UNION POLITICS
SERIES EDITORS:
MICHELLE EGAN · NEILL NUGENT · WILLIAM E. PATERSON

Shaping Parliamentary
Democracy
Collected Memories from
the European Parliament

Edited by
Alfredo De Feo · Michael Shackleton
Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics

Series Editors
Michelle Egan
American University
Washington, USA

Neill Nugent
Manchester Metropolitan University
Manchester, UK

William E. Paterson
Aston University
Birmingham, UK
Following on the sustained success of the acclaimed European Union
Series, which essentially publishes research-based textbooks, Palgrave
Studies in European Union Politics publishes cutting edge research-
driven monographs. The remit of the series is broadly defined, both in
terms of subject and academic discipline. All topics of significance con-
cerning the nature and operation of the European Union potentially fall
within the scope of the series. The series is multidisciplinary to reflect
the growing importance of the EU as a political, economic and social
phenomenon.

Editorial Board
Laurie Buonanno (SUNY Buffalo State, USA)
Kenneth Dyson (Cardiff University, UK)
Brigid Laffan (European University Institute, Italy)
Claudio Radaelli (University College London, UK)
Mark Rhinard (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Ariadna Ripoll Servent (University of Bamberg, Germany)
Frank Schimmelfennig (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Claudia Sternberg (University College London, UK)
Nathalie Tocci (Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy)

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14629
 Alfredo De Feo · Michael Shackleton
Editors

Shaping Parliamentary
Democracy
Collected Memories from the European
Parliament
Editors
Alfredo De Feo Michael Shackleton
European College of Parma Department of Political Science
Parma, Italy Maastricht University
Maastricht, The Netherlands

ISSN 2662-5873 ISSN 2662-5881 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics
ISBN 978-3-030-27212-8 ISBN 978-3-030-27213-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27213-5

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 Foreword

Forty years ago, in 1979, the European Parliament was elected for
the first time by universal suffrage and embarked on opening a new
chapter of its history, leaving behind times of its limited consulta-
tive role as Common Assembly of the Coal and Steel Community and
as Parliamentary Assembly of the European Communities. From 1979
onwards, the Parliament consistently expanded its competences, from the
initial consultative role on the European Communities’ budget to attain-
ing a full co-legislator role equal to that of the Council of the European
Union with approval authority on the appointment of the European
Commission.
When German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer opened the first plenary
session of the Common Assembly of the Coal and Steel Community on
13th September 1952 in his role as President of the Special Council of
Ministers, he framed the role and the objectives of this new Parliament
for Europe:

Vous êtes, en Europe, le premier Parlement souverain construit sur une

base supranationale. Grâce à la constitution de ce Parlement, les plans
que nous avons formés pour créer une nouvelle Europe ont fait un pro-
grès nouveau et considérable… Dans une certaine mesure, on peut com-
parer la position du Conseil et de l’Assemblée au rapport qui existe entre
deux chambres à l’intérieur de la vie constitutionnelle d’un Etat. (HAEU,
AC-151)

v
vi FOREWORD

With the Rome Treaties of 1957, the Common Assembly was expanded
to cover the Economic (EEC) and the Atomic Energy (Euratom)
Communities and was renamed European Parliamentary Assembly and
eventually European Parliament in 1962. In 1976 the Electoral Act for
the European Parliament was passed and the first direct elections fol-
lowed three years later. On 17th July 1979, President Simone Veil spoke
in front of the first directly elected Parliament saying:

For this is the first time in history, a history in which we have so frequently
been divided, pitted one against the other, bent on mutual destruction,
that the people of Europe have together elected their delegates to a com-
mon assembly representing, in this Chamber today, more than 260 mil-
lion people. Let there be no doubt, these elections form a milestone on
the path of Europe, the most important since the signing of the Treaties.
(HAEU, PE1-18240)

Looking back at the history of this unique transnational democratic

body, the main source of knowledge we derive from its rich past lies
within the historical records of the Parliament; the minutes of its ple-
nary and commission sessions, the acts of its governing bodies: the
Bureau and the Committee of Presidents, and finally the workings of its
administration.
These archives were opened to the public in 1983 and since 1986
deposited in the newly established Historical Archives of the European
Union at the European University Institute in Florence. Until today the
considerable amount of 130,000 archival files have been transferred to
Florence by yearly shipment and have been studied by numerous scholars
thanks to this ground-breaking decision.
The quest to better understand the historical role of the Parliament
within the European integration process and the EU institutional frame-
work allowed the idea to develop amongst Members of Parliament, offi-
cials, and historians to look beyond the written memory deposited at
the HAEU. Backed by other oral history projects, such as the research
“European Commission—History and memories of an institution”
of the European Commission, written by a consortium of renowned
European integration historians, the European Parliament eventually dis-
covered the value of investigation via the oral history approach.
A first project of the European Parliament Research Service focused
on interviewing former Parliament Presidents. Then the research group
 FOREWORD vii

“Collecting Memories: European Parliament 1979–2019”, consisting of

former EP officials, with the support of the Former Members Association
of the European Parliament, embarked on a project with broader scope.
The project has to date produced more than 100 interviews with for-
mer Members of Parliament and will continue after the publication of
this book, thus expanding the range of interviews and the network of
researchers involved.
The Historical Archives of the European Union supported the pro-
ject, offered the deposit and long-term provision for public access
to these interviews to the scholarly community as part of its oral his-
tory platform. The considerable and still growing set of interviews will
therefore be available to the public alongside other oral history projects
related to European institutions and broadly to the history of European
integration.
The main findings of these numerous interviews are presented in this
volume. They show readers key moments in the history of the European
Parliament, which, at the occasion of the European elections in May
2019, looks back on 40 years of direct elections.
Thanking the interviewers and authors of this volume for their
inspired research endeavour, it is my pleasure, as Director of the
Historical Archives of the European Union, to invite the readers to
unfold this oral history of the European Parliament seen through the
lens of its members.

Florence, Italy Dieter Schlenker

Director of the Historical
Archives of the European
Union, Villa Salviati
 Acknowledgements

This work has been made possible thanks to the enthusiasm of all the
Members of the European Parliament we have contacted. We could
not interview all of them, but the project of the Historical Archives will
remain open and we hope to add more contributions.
A special thanks to Dieter Schlenker, Director of the Historical
Archives of the European Union, who has not only encouraged us but
also offered the material support mainly through his colleagues, Juan
Alonso Fernandez and Barbara Garbagnati.
We are also indebted to Elisabetta Fonck who has also been crucial for
our relations with the Former Member Association.
Finally, we are grateful to our indexer Rohan Bolton for her work.
Last but not least our special thanks to Jan, Julia, Maria, Ruth, and
Susan, who have supported our work.

ix
 Praise for Shaping Parliamentary
Democracy

“Oral history brings the European Parliament to life. Readers of

Collecting Memories will enjoy insiders’ accounts of some of the most
important developments in the life of the EP in recent years. The book
provides a set of thematic chapters that drawn on the EP oral history
depository’s most cogent anecdotes and insights, and a primer on the
methodology of collecting and using an oral history archive.”
—Desmond Dinan, Professor at George Mason School of Public Policy,
Arlington, Virginia, USA

“The amazing development of the European Parliament over the past 4

decades exemplifies the constitutional revolution the European Union
has gone through so successfully. These personal testimonies will bring
that history to life again.”
—Klaus Welle, Secretary General of the European Parliament

xi
 Contents

1 Introducing Our Project 1

Alfredo De Feo and Michael Shackleton

2 Choosing the Parliament 11

Francis Jacobs

3 Working Inside the Parliament Machine 23

Gérard Laprat

4 Living Inside the Political Groups 37

Gérard Laprat

5 Playing a Part at Major Moments 49

Dietmar Nickel

6 Influencing and Shaping Policy 63

Alfredo De Feo

7 Scrutinising and Holding to Account 77

Michael Shackleton

8 Making a Mark Beyond the EU 89

Dietmar Nickel

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

9 Communicating the Work of the Parliament 101

Alfredo De Feo

10 Keeping in Touch with National Societies 111

Francis Jacobs

11 Looking to the Future 125

Michael Shackleton

Appendix 137

Index 153
 List of Contributors

Alfredo De Feo European College of Parma, Parma, Italy

Francis Jacobs University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
Gérard Laprat Lecturer, École Nationale d’Administration, Strasbourg,
France
Dietmar Nickel Institute for European Integration, Hamburg,
Germany
Michael Shackleton Department of Political Science, Maastricht
University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

xv
 Abbreviations

ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
CCC Conference of Committee Chairs
CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy
COM Communist Group
CoP Conference of Presidents of Political Groups
ECB European Central Bank
ECJ European Court of Justice
ECR European Conservatives and Reformists
ECSC European Coal and Steel Community
EDG European Democratic Group
EEC European Economic Community
EP European Parliament
EPP European People’s Party
ERA European Radical Alliance
ETUC European Trade Union Confederation
EU European Union
Euratom European Atomic Energy Community
FE Forza Europa
GUE European United Left/Nordic Green Left
HAEU Historical Archives of the European Union
IGC Intergovernmental Conference
LGTB Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bisexual
LIFE European Financial instrument for the environment
MEA Member of the European Assembly
MEP Member of the European Parliament

xvii
xviii ABBREVIATIONS

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

PES Party of European Socialists
PNR Passenger Name Record
QMV Qualified Majority Voting
REACH Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and
Restriction of Chemicals
RoP Rules of Procedure
SEA Single European Act
SME Small and Medium-sized Enterprise
SWIFT Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
TACIS Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States
TEU Treaty on the European Union
TFEU Treaty on Functioning of the European Union
TFTP Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme
UEN Union for a Europe of Nations
UK United Kingdom
US United States of America
 CHAPTER 1

Introducing Our Project

Alfredo De Feo and Michael Shackleton

Abstract This chapter provides a brief introduction to the project that

led to this book: the creation of an oral archive containing interviews
with former Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The volume
editors reflect on the origins, aims and evolution of the project, as well as
their methodology. They highlight that the book is not meant to com-
pete with academic analyses of the European Parliament. Instead they
seek to tell the story of the institution based on personal experiences.
The introduction ends with a short outline of the subsequent chapters,
with each corresponding to a specific theme presented in the archive:
choosing the parliament, working inside the parliament machine, living
inside the political groups, playing a part in major moments, influencing
and shaping policy, scrutinizing and holding to account, making a mark
beyond the EU, communicating the work of the Parliament, keeping in
touch with national societies, and looking to the future.

A. De Feo (*)
European College of Parma, Parma, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
M. Shackleton
Department of Political Science, Maastricht University,
Maastricht, The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 1

A. De Feo and M. Shackleton (eds.), Shaping Parliamentary
Democracy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27213-5_1
2 A. DE FEO AND M. SHACKLETON

Keywords European Union · European Parliament · MEPs ·

European parliamentary democracy · Historical Archives of the
European Union · Oral History

The Origins of the Project

This project started in the course of a walk in North Oxfordshire a cou-
ple of years ago. The two co-editors noted that 2019 would mark the
40th anniversary of the first direct elections to the European Parliament
and felt that it was a good moment to look back at what the Parliament
has and has not achieved over the last four decades. The anniversary pro-
vided, in our eyes, an opportunity to see how the institution has devel-
oped and how far it has been able to go in contributing to the creation
of a parliamentary democracy at European level. In addition, it offered a
yardstick against which the future development of the Parliament could
be judged at a time of major turmoil in the history of the European
Union (EU).
As former civil servants of the institution, we felt we should aim to
achieve these goals in a different way from the traditional academic text-
book. We did not wish to compete with the many works that already
exist on the evolution of the powers of the Parliament.1 Scholars much
more competent than us have analysed all the nuances of the institutional
development of the EP. We wanted rather to grasp the human side of
a remarkable journey of 40 years during which MEPs from all parts of
Europe, with very different political and cultural backgrounds, came
together and succeeded in making the institution work and in turning it
into a major player in the preparation of European legislation.
Hence we decided instead to aim to create an oral archive containing
interviews with former Members of the European Parliament (MEPs),
who were active between 1979 and 2019. We wanted them to provide
their memories of their time in the institution even if, and perhaps par-
ticularly if, it was now many years since they had been MEPs. We noted
that with the passage of time, the early years of the directly-elected

1 A full bibliography can be found in a study prepared by Desmond Dinan for the

European Parliamentary Research Service entitled “Historiography of the European

Parliament: Changing Perceptions of the Institution from the 1950s to Today” (European
Parliament History Series, PE 630.270—November 2018).
 1 INTRODUCING OUR PROJECT 3

Parliament in particular were in danger of becoming lost in the mists of

time, more and more unfamiliar to new MEPs and researchers alike.
How was this to be done? First, we convinced three former colleagues
(and friends) to join the project. Like us, they had all worked in par-
liamentary committees but they also could bring other experiences to
the project, such as working in a political group or serving in the Private
Office of a Parliament President. With five of us we were able to cover
several countries and languages, though we decided at an early stage to
use English as the main vehicle of communication (a minority of inter-
views are in French, Italian and Spanish). All five have contributed to this
book, with each of us writing two of the following chapters.
We decided not to seek outside funding for the project but realised
that enthusiasm and commitment to our old institution would not be
enough to create the archives that we had in mind. So we set about find-
ing sponsors who could help us to make a reality of our ideas. Three
institutions were particularly important in making the archives possible.
First, we enlisted the support of the Historical Archives of the
European Union (HAEU). The Director, Dieter Schlenker, sup-
ported our project—the first oral archive of material from the European
Parliament—and included it amongst those to be carried out by the
European University Institute. The support of the HAEU was par-
ticularly important not just for the material and technical support in
establishing the website for the archives but above all, for the long-
term visibility of the project and of this book, given that the archives
in Florence are a central point of reference for most researchers inter-
ested in the history of European integration. You will find the website at:
https://archives.eui.eu/en/oral_history#CM_EP.
Second, we needed to find a way of approaching former members
and were given full support by the Former Members Association of
the European Parliament. The Secretary General of the Association,
Elisabetta Fonck, obtained the backing of the Board of the Association
and launched the project by asking all members of the FMA to volun-
teer to contribute to our project. We were then able to contact directly
those who had expressed an interest and to avoid pestering those who,
for whatever reason, did not wish to participate.
Third, we approached Maastricht University, where one of us is
a Visiting Professor, to bring together a group of students, supervised
by Professor Christine Neuhold, who could help us find ways to make
the archives as visible and user-friendly as possible. Their enthusiasm
4 A. DE FEO AND M. SHACKLETON

increased our own motivation for the project and also led us towards
presenting the material in the archives not just by name but also by
theme. Together we identified the ten themes that structure this book
and the archives itself.
We want to express our gratitude here for the contribution that all
three institutions made to the launch of the project but also to explain
the context in which the project has developed, with its weaknesses as
well as its strengths. It is fair to say that the lack of any financial support
did not limit our activity but in some cases, the interviews did not take
place under perfect conditions. This is reflected in the low quality of the
audio of some interviews and also in the fact that we were not always
able to meet former members face-to-face and were obliged to talk to
them over the phone.
The choice of former MEPs rather than existing ones was deliberate.
Current members are generally too much taken up by the hectic day-
to-day life of the Parliament, with more limited time and inclination
to look back over the development of the institution. We have only
made a very limited number of exceptions to this rule where we felt
that the particular experience of the members concerned warranted it.
As indicated earlier, the FMA invited former members to volunteer to
contribute to the project. Hence if you are looking for geographical and
political balance, you will search in vain. However, the total number of
contributions from members in this phase of the project is close to 100.
Who are the MEPs that we interviewed and in which parliamentary
legislature did they serve? You will find at the end of the book the full list
of MEPs, indicating when they were MEPs, what groups they belonged
to and what formal office, if any, they held. From this information one
can point to the following conclusions:
Women represent 30% of those interviewed, a higher percentage
than the average proportion of women MEPs per legislature since 1979
(26%).
Most of the MEPs interviewed were active in the first thirty of the
forty years covered by the archive: 69% served the Institution during the
period 1989–2009, a period when the Parliament was changing very rap-
idly as the chronological glossary that follows the eleven main chapters
indicates, and almost a fifth were active in the first decade of the elected
Parliament after 1979. Only 7 Members served during the term ending
in 2019.
 1 INTRODUCING OUR PROJECT 5

The majority (about 60%) of the MEPs interviewed were formal office
holders and in some cases, cumulated several positions in the Parliament
(President, Vice-President, Quaestor or Committee Chair). Many of the
remaining 40% played an active role as rapporteurs either in the budg-
etary or legislative procedures or as coordinators and delegation leaders
within their political group. Their heavy involvement in the Parliament’s
activities may explain their willingness to contribute to our project and
certainly reinforces the relevance of their interviews.
In geographical terms, there is a large majority (53%) who come from
the six founding countries, as well as 31% from the UK. The latter, irre-
spective of their political party, all expressed their sadness at the prospect
of the UK leaving the EU. By contrast, no members committed to Brexit
volunteered to be interviewed. In addition, very few members from
Central and Eastern Europe responded to our invitation, a situation we
would hope would be remedied in the years to come.
Finally, what of the division into political groups? More than 65% of
our interviewees are from the PES and EPP groups, thereby matching
the composition of the House over the last forty years. More PES than
EPP members were interviewed, partly reflecting the fact that this group
was the largest up until 1999 and the majority of our interviewees were
from that period. Interviewees from the third largest group, ALDE,
represent 15% of the total, the remainder divided amongst the smaller
groups. These figures need to be treated with some caution. National
parties switched from one group to another and this was reflected in
the changing titles of the groups. The Socialist group became in the last
decade Socialists and Democrats; the Liberal group became ALDE, the
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. The European Peoples’
Party was known as the EPP-ED (European Democrat) group from
1992 to 2009 when the British Conservatives were members. The same
is true for some Italian delegations who were seated in the EPP and
ALDE groups and then were with the Socialists and Democrats.

The Structure of the Project

It is worth repeating that the aim of the project has not been to compete
with academic analyses of the European Parliament. Rather our inten-
tion has been to tell the story of the institution based on personal experi-
ences, which in our view, is an essential complement to what has already
been written on the history of the Parliament and its role in European
6 A. DE FEO AND M. SHACKLETON

integration. However, we did not want to provide researchers simply

with a set of alphabetically-ordered interviews and invite them to listen
to them. We wanted to present the archives in a way that would facilitate
the work of the listener.
First, we sent former members a questionnaire, which you can find in
the annexes to this book, inviting them to answer a series of questions
about their experience inside the institution. Not all members wanted to
fill out this questionnaire and we did not make it a condition for mak-
ing an interview. However, the written material provided often consti-
tuted a starting point for the subsequent interview. The questionnaires
that were completed are to be found in the HAEU archive, alongside the
interviews.
Second, the interviews themselves normally follow a similar pattern:
you will hear the same kind of questions being asked by all five inter-
viewers. The interviewees are usually invited to indicate why they came
to the Parliament in the first place and what their first impressions were,
to give an indication of their or the institution’s successes and failures
during their mandate and to talk about the relation between their work
in Brussels and Strasbourg and back home. We attempted in most cases
to limit the interviews to around one hour and this did not always give
us time to cover everything the member wanted to talk about. However,
the central point was to let the member give their own impressions: we
only wanted to provide them with a framework within which to place
those impressions, impressions which may also contain material errors
over dates and names which we did not attempt to correct.
Third, the interviews are not left to speak for themselves. With the
help of our Maastricht students, we decided to organise the interviews
around ten themes, the themes that are discussed in the following chap-
ters. Hence if you are particularly interested in scrutiny and accountabil-
ity or shaping and influencing policy, you can identify from the tables at
the end of each chapter and on the HAEU website the interviews that
concentrate on these themes and where in the interview you can find the
relevant material. These tables are not created by an algorithm but by
human beings and thus they may be imprecise as to timings and your
own appreciation may be different. Nevertheless, we felt that it is worth
the effort to create such tables to enable researchers to home in on par-
ticular sections of the different interviews. It also increases the possible
uses of the interviews. Some may be interested in a particular person or
group of persons, such as former Presidents of the Parliament (we have
 1 INTRODUCING OUR PROJECT 7

interviewed seven of them) or members of a particular nationality but

probably more will want to consider specific issues or events. We hope
that the way we have structured the project will make this easier and
will also enable comparison between members whose opinions naturally
differ.
In our minds, the project does not end with the publication of this
book or the inclusion of our interviews in the archive. The Collecting
Memories section of the Historical Archives of the European Union will
remain open for further interviews and we certainly have the ambition
that others take over from us to continue what has been a great adven-
ture, with a certain dose of nostalgia. Every five years about half of the
membership of the Parliament changes; it is therefore an ideal moment
for them to add their contribution to the oral history for the interest of
researchers but also of potential future members.

The Contents of the Chapters

The chapters that follow aim to link the interviews held in the archives
to the themes that we identified and thereby to offer an encouragement
for all to dip into the interview material. They do not aim to offer a full
picture of the stories that we have heard but rather to pick up common
threads linking the material together. Each chapter has as its author,
one of the five of us who did the interviews, all with somewhat different
styles and approaches (as in all edited volumes). All the chapters, how-
ever, follow four simple rules:

• the stories we tell in the chapters are based on the memories that we
have collected (and not, for example, our own memories);
• Members are not quoted directly by name: we have put material in
italics that is taken from an interview or questionnaire and in a few
cases, it is adapted for linguistic reasons;
• each chapter is, as pointed out above, followed by a list of those
interviews that are particularly relevant to the theme discussed, with
an indication of the part of the interview that covers that theme;
and
• each chapter ends with a brief section reminding the reader of some
academic literature relevant to the theme under discussion as well
as a number of questions that the authors felt arose from the inter-
view material and that researchers might wish to consider as they
8 A. DE FEO AND M. SHACKLETON

listen to the interviews. Neither the literature quoted nor the ques-
tions raised are designed to be comprehensive but rather to under-
line that the chosen themes should be understood in the context of
the wider search for an understanding of the development of the
European Parliament as an institution.

In terms of content, the ten chapters that follow can be resumed as

follows:
Chapter 2 “Choosing the Parliament” considers first the different
routes by which the interviewees ended up in the European Parliament,
whether they had been involved in politics or not, their prior knowl-
edge of the EU, their professional background and experience and the
extent of their European convictions. The second half of the chapter
looks at their first impressions of a multinational and multilingual par-
liament, the ways they adapted to an often unfamiliar culture of com-
promise and consensus and their relative autonomy compared to national
parliamentarians.
Chapter 3 “Working Inside the Parliament Machine” first looks at the
many different ways in which newly elected MEPs have sought to adapt
to the very specific context of the “European Parliament machine”, the
practical choices they have to make, the political constraints they have
to recognize in pursuing their priorities and the best way to make their
way through the institutions as they “learn by doing”. The second part
of the chapter presents the experiences of those who have risen to par-
ticular positions of power and of influence within the machine, notably
President, Vice-President, Quaestor and Committee Chair.
Chapter 4 “Living Inside the Political Groups” highlights the views of
former MEPs on the growing influence of the political groups. It notes
the development beyond the Parliament’s official bodies, where every
group is duly represented, of unofficial structures, notably the “grand
coalition”. It presents the views of MEPs on how this coalition worked
in the legislative arena and influenced nominations. It looks at the rela-
tionship between the groups and the committees of the Parliament
including through the work of group coordinators and concludes by
considering the internal workings of the groups, notably the national
delegations.
Chapter 5 “Playing a Part at Major Moments” considers the extraor-
dinarily rapid institutional development of the EP through the eyes
of MEPs who lived through the period and were active participants.
 1 INTRODUCING OUR PROJECT 9

It considers the role of members in such events as the rejection of the

budget in 1979 and 1984, the Spinelli initiative and the establishment
of the 1992 programme and the Treaty changes that increased the
Parliament’s role from the Single European Act in 1987 to the Lisbon
Treaty in 2009 as well as setbacks such as the failure to obtain a single
seat.
Chapter 6 “Shaping and Influencing Policy” uses examples to illus-
trate how the EP has influenced and shaped EU policy, gaining in
credibility and winning recognition of its role as an equal partner of
the Council. The path from limited budgetary powers at the end of the
70s to full codecision with the Lisbon Treaty has been marked by the
development of formal competences and informal mechanisms which
have together led to concrete legislative and budgetary acts, with direct
consequences for the lives of EU citizens. The memories linked to this
theme reflect this transition and point to two conclusions: first, there is
no strict correlation between competences and influence and second,
the Parliament has developed a culture of compromise, respecting and
responding to different positions, which offers something beyond the
compromises possible in the Council.
Chapter 7 “Scrutinizing and Holding to Account” recalls the debate
about the source of executive power in the EU and then considers three
aspects of executive accountability as perceived by former MEPs: the
power of dismissal, effectively used but once, in 1999, when the Santer
Commission resigned; the power of appointment, in particular through
hearings but also by imposing conditions for appointment; and the evo-
lution of the Parliament’s general ability to scrutinize what the executive
bodies of the EU do.
Chapter 8 “Making a Mark Beyond the EU” presents the memories
of members who were involved in the development of a new form of par-
liamentary diplomacy. It gives an overview of the attitudes of members
to their work in external relations and then considers the different instru-
ments they have developed to enable them to have an impact. It looks in
particular at the power of consent, the use of the budget, the framing of
legislation, the development of election observation as well as the role
the institution has played in promoting ideas, upholding human rights
and supporting integration as a way of resolving conflicts.
Chapter 9 “Communicating the Work of the Parliament” highlights
the problems that MEPs have faced in communicating their contribu-
tion to the activities of the EP and the results of Parliament’s decisions.
10 A. DE FEO AND M. SHACKLETON

In particular, the chapter considers relations with national and local

media as well as contacts with specialised interests in society. It also looks
at how the external world, the general public and interest groups gave
their views to MEPs and how such communication linked the issues of
transparency and autonomy of individual MEPs.
Chapter 10 “Keeping in Touch with National Societies” looks at the
critical national dimension of an MEP’s role and at some of the factors
that condition the differences from one country to another. It begins by
examining MEPs’ relations with their own national governments as well
as with regional and local governments. It goes on to examine the some-
times difficult relations with national parliaments and with the MEP’s
own national party. The last part of the chapter looks at how MEPs work
within their constituency and their links with civil society and with con-
cerned interest groups.
Chapter 11 “Looking to the Future” presents the contrast between
the future as seen by the EP after 1979 and that which beckons for new
members after the 2019 elections. There is no longer the automatic
assumption that what has been achieved by the Parliament over 40 years
in furthering integration will necessarily be sustained. The responses of
former MEPs to this change can be categorised as optimistic, pessimistic
and pragmatic and reflect different views about the nature of represent-
ative democracy at EU level, notably the tension between a separation
of powers or parliamentary government and the need for any system to
address the issue of identity for European citizens. The challenge for
future legislatures is likely to prove even greater than was the fight to
gain institutional acceptance in a previous generation.
Our work will have been successful if you, the reader, now wish to
move on to listen to the interviews that we made and to hear how the
interviewees perceived the successes and failures not only of the institu-
tion but of themselves. As one member put it, it is rare that individual
MEPs have a direct personal effect on the EU but they have contributed to a
collective effort which constitutes the output of the Parliament.
 CHAPTER 2

Choosing the Parliament

Francis Jacobs

Abstract This chapter looks first at the different routes by which the
interviewees ended up in the European Parliament, whether they had
been involved in politics or not, their prior knowledge of the EU, their
professional background and experience, and the extent to which they
were motivated to stand for election. It also looks at their personal sto-
ries and the extent of their European convictions. The second half of the
chapter looks at their first impressions of a multinational and multilingual
parliament, the ways they adapted to an often unfamiliar culture of com-
promise and consensus, their relative autonomy compared to national
parliamentarians, and some of the problems that they faced.

Keywords European Parliament · National electoral systems · Political

and professional backgrounds of MEPs · Compromise · Consensus

Introduction
The routes by which people are elected to individual national parliaments
are varied but normally fit into a number of familiar patterns. What they
find if they are elected is also relatively familiar from their own education

F. Jacobs (*)
University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

© The Author(s) 2019 11

A. De Feo and M. Shackleton (eds.), Shaping Parliamentary
Democracy, Palgrave Studies in European Union Politics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27213-5_2
12 F. JACOBS

and national media if not from their own party or other personal experi-
ence. This is not the case as regards election to the European Parliament
where the electoral system used varies from country to country, where
the national political cultures are so very different and where the role and
structures of the world’s first truly multinational parliament are so much
less familiar even to many of those who have been long-term political
activists.
The first part of this chapter looks at how the interviewees were
elected to the European Parliament, and seeks to highlight some of
the main similarities and differences that emerge in the interviews, the
impact of national electoral systems, the political or other professional
background of the interviewees, the role of chance in their election, their
underlying attitudes to the European Union and the personal narratives
that had most influence on them. The second part of the chapter looks at
their initial impressions of the European Parliament, whether it fitted in
or diverged from their initial preconceptions and the extent to which it
differed from their national parliament or national political context.

Getting Elected to the European Parliament

Differences Stemming from Different National Electoral Systems

A first key factor identified in the interviews is the contrast between top-
down and bottom-up entry into the European Parliament, and all the
spectrum in between. Top-down is when candidates, who may be well-
known political or other personalities, or else be unknown to the gen-
eral public, are chosen to be candidates for the European Parliament by
political party leaders, and are then placed before voters in such a way as
to be almost guaranteed election, in particular by being at or near the
top of a list or party slate of candidates. This is notably the case in large
parties in the larger member states, especially when the lists are closed
and voters cannot change the list order. A considerable number of inter-
viewees arrived in the European Parliament by such a route, notably in
countries like France or Spain, and form a significant proportion of the
“accidental” arrivals in the European Parliament, those who had not
explicitly thought of a European political career until asked to do so by
their national party leadership structures.
The interviews thus show significant differences in MEP recruitment
patterns based on differences between larger and smaller EU countries
 2 CHOOSING THE PARLIAMENT 13

and between different electoral systems, notably between those with

single constituencies (the UK until 1999), those with closed lists where
party leaders decide on the composition of lists and voters cannot change
the order, preferential voting systems where the order of candidates can
be modified by voters, or else are completely open, as with the Single
Transferable Vote in Ireland. Some interviewees, therefore, describe how
they got elected thanks to favourable preferences.
The interviews also show the difficulty of generalisation. Germany, for
example, has closed lists for larger parties with up to 40 or more seats
and yet individual German interviewees pointed out that getting on
to these lists often depended on the balance of candidates from differ-
ent Länder and even on balance between sub-regions within individual
Länder. Being selected by Labour or Conservative for a particular UK
constituency might almost guarantee your election, but candidates could
also be chosen by local activists against the party leadership’s initial pref-
erences or even on the basis of their gender.

Differing Political and Professional Backgrounds

I had no ambition to be an MEP, but in 1984 my party leader decided that
I should go.
I came partly by accident, was a former MP and Minister, lost my seat
and came around to the idea of standing for the EP.
After Land and German politics, I wanted to experience the European
level.
I wanted to be in European politics, and, after indirect influence as a
lobbyist for 7 years, sought direct involvement in the EU decision-making
process.
These four quotes from members of three different nationalities illus-
trate the range of motivations for seeking to become MEPs. Among the
key differences identified was that between those who were professional
politicians and those who were new entrants and that between those for
whom the European Parliament was one political option among many
and those for whom a European political career was far more attractive
than a national one.
A considerable number of the interviewees were already full-time pol-
iticians before coming to the European Parliament, many of them in
their regional or national parliament and some of them having already
been government ministers. Their motives for seeking election to the
14 F. JACOBS

European Parliament were very varied: some had lost their national par-
liamentary seat and were available to be a candidate at the next European
elections, either as a short time solution or as a new political career direc-
tion; others were still in their national parliament but were looking for
a new political challenge; and yet others were young politicians starting
their careers and wishing to make a mark anywhere.
Another category of those with direct political experience were those
who had been political staff members, either for individual politicians or
for political parties or groups (including a number who had worked in
the European Parliament). British members were particularly likely to
have been staff members before their election. Several interviewees had
also had powerful political party positions domestically, such as being
secretary-general.
Besides full-time politicians, many MEPs had previously been elected
at local level or had been activists in various citizens groups, such as envi-
ronmental groups, feminist organisations, youth groups and federalist
organisations. Some of these groups were new to contesting elections,
and the European Parliament elections constituted an excellent opportu-
nity for them to make a mark.
Other routes to EP politics were more indirect, entailing involvement
in public policy-making through being a civil servant at national or inter-
national level, diplomat, businessman, trade unionist, farmers leader or
general lobbyist. This work led to them trying their hand in the political
arena, sometimes after having been encouraged to do so by a political
patron. A related category was that of policy experts, such as econo-
mists and scientists whose expertise could be very useful in the European
Parliament.
One important element was that the EP was a relatively new and
evolving Parliament with a different character from national parliaments.
Moreover, voters at EP elections were not choosing their national gov-
ernments and sometimes the election system was different to that used in
national elections. All these factors facilitated the election of new parties
and movements often not represented nationally but also permitted people
from a wider variety of professional backgrounds to get elected to the EP.

Varying Levels of Knowledge of the EP and the EU

I knew so little about the EP when elected that I went to the Commission
rather than to the Parliament building in Brussels.
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