2010-03-19
Yesterday I was called by an assistant to a Polish Member of the European Parliament. He was worried about the low attendance of his MEP and asked about the calculation method we use at our website Its Your Parliament. I told him that the way we calculate the attandance is by counting the number of roll call votes cast in plenary.
Of course we are aware tht the attendance doesn't capture all activities of MEPs, it never will.
The assistant kindly proposed another way to calculate the attendance: To count the number of days present.
We did consider this option when building Its Your Parliament but found the plenary activities a better measure.
Every time a MEP signs the official attendance register he or she can collect his/her daily allowance (currently € 298 a day), however MEPs don't have to participate actively to sign the attendance register. Voting in the plenary on the other hand directly effects the decisions taken by the European Parliament.
Our point in short: If your MEP has a low attendance, it's up to your MEP to change this - not us.
Now let's have a look at how Polish MEPs are actually doing when it comes to plenary attendance. The overall attendance for all MEPs is currently 82.18 % for Polish MEPs the figure is 83.03 % a little above avarage General speaking Polish MEPs are doing fine when it comes to plenary attendance in the European Parliament.
Poland has 50 elected MEPs. Conservative Filip Kaczmarek has the highest level of presence at 98.56 % while Jerzy Buzek the President of the European Parliament has the lowest (only 24,64 %). The President is a special case it must be noted, normally he doesn't participate in the votes but he is present and leads the meetings. After Jerzy Buzek comes Jan Kozłowski (39.24 %) a new MEP replacing Janusz Lewandowski who is now Commissioner. So far Jan Kozłowski's attendance is based on only 79 votes. Third lowest attendance of the Polish MEPs is Jacek Olgierd Kurski from the political party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, he has been present for 51.26 % of all roll call votes.
Using data from Its Your Parliament I have made a list of Polish MEPs ordered by attendance (pdf).
Our point in short: If your MEP has a low attendance, it's up to your MEP to change this - not us.
Now let's have a look at how Polish MEPs are actually doing when it comes to plenary attendance. The overall attendance for all MEPs is currently 82.18 % for Polish MEPs the figure is 83.03 % a little above avarage General speaking Polish MEPs are doing fine when it comes to plenary attendance in the European Parliament.
Poland has 50 elected MEPs. Conservative Filip Kaczmarek has the highest level of presence at 98.56 % while Jerzy Buzek the President of the European Parliament has the lowest (only 24,64 %). The President is a special case it must be noted, normally he doesn't participate in the votes but he is present and leads the meetings. After Jerzy Buzek comes Jan Kozłowski (39.24 %) a new MEP replacing Janusz Lewandowski who is now Commissioner. So far Jan Kozłowski's attendance is based on only 79 votes. Third lowest attendance of the Polish MEPs is Jacek Olgierd Kurski from the political party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, he has been present for 51.26 % of all roll call votes.
Using data from Its Your Parliament I have made a list of Polish MEPs ordered by attendance (pdf).