At that time, the political scientist claims that the small number of members of the Lithuanian delegation should not mean that our country’s MEPs are automatically the most passive.
Last week, the Politico publication shared the EP statistics of this term, which showed that Lithuanian politicians were the most passive in the entire parliament when drafting legislation.
On average, MEPs from Lithuania as main rapporteurs prepared an average of 1.8 legal acts during their term of office, and 2.8 as so-called shadow rapporteurs. According to both criteria, the members of the Lithuanian delegation are the last among all the members of the EP.
The EP committee appoints a rapporteur to prepare a report on legislative or budgetary proposals, they are also responsible for drafting compromise amendments and negotiating with shadow rapporteurs. The reports approved in the committees are then discussed and voted on in the plenary session of the EP.
The political groups appoint a shadow rapporteur for each report in the committee to follow the progress of the report and to negotiate compromise texts with the rapporteur.
Juozas Olekas, a social democrat working in the EP for the first term, said that these statistics do not reflect the work of all the members of the Lithuanian delegation, some of them, according to him, are really active in the legislative process, and were appointed as both main and so-called shadow speakers.
“I can also congratulate my colleague Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, and I have to present legal acts. (…) Unfortunately, others are probably doing something else. Maybe that’s why we get such a generalized impression when we lump together those who work well and those who show less,” J. Olekas told BNS.
“The average does not reflect the work we each do in the European Parliament,” he added.
According to the data on the official page of the EP, the social democrat was appointed shadow rapporteur eight times this term.
“It is necessary to look at the activities of each member of the EP, because each of us is elected personally, representing our voters, our political line,” said J. Olekas.
The smaller the delegation, the more passive members are visible
Petras Auštrevičius, representative of the Liberal Movement, who is serving his second term in the EP, seconded J. Olekas and said that the derived Lithuanian average does not show the productivity of our country’s MEPs.
“The average temperature in the hospital would mean death for some, and life for some,” P. Auštrevičius told BNS.
According to the liberal, Lithuania’s result is reduced by passive MEPs.
“Not everyone was equally active or willing to work. Admittedly, the statistics are pretty clear. I think that almost a third of our national delegation was hardly noticeable, which also lowered the overall rating”, said the member of the EP.
“One thing is clear – the smaller the delegation, the more visible each member is,” he added.
According to him, the small number of speakers from Lithuania is also explained by the fact that Lithuania did not have representatives in the Budget Committee this term.
“As a rulethis committee prepares a lot of legal acts, they are mostly technical”, said P. Auštrevičius.
Mr. Auštrevičius was the main speaker four times this term and was appointed shadow speaker eight times.
“Yes, our delegation was not one of the most active, but here is everyone’s personal determination. For some reason, the voters voted for them, it would be good if they explained to the voters how they elected such members of the EP,” said the liberal.
Political scientist: A small delegation does not necessarily mean low turnout
Matas Baltrukevičius, an associate analyst at the Vilnius Institute of Political Analysis (VPAI), told BNS that the low activity of Lithuanian EP members in the legislative process should not be justified only by the small number of members of the country’s delegation.
“We are not the only country with a small delegation. The fact that there is a small country and few members does not mean that the activity metrics should also be small,” said the VPAI analyst.
M. Baltrukevičius noticed that the low activity of Lithuanian representatives in the EP can also be determined by the tradition that some politicians understand the work in Brussels as an “early political retirement”, Lithuanian parties see a place in the EP as a “prize for long-term merits”.
“Then we send people who don’t have a lot of energy and motivation to engage in big political campaigns,” said the political scientist.
According to him, when it comes to the activity of MEPs, the salary factor should also be taken into account.
“If we were to look at the countries of Western Europe, we would find quite a few countries where the gap between the salary in the national parliament and the salary in the EP would not be so dramatically large, (…) things work differently there and in many Western European countries the EP is a kind of primer for politics , where politicians go before stepping foot into national politics more seriously. The situation in Lithuania is somewhat different”, said M. Baltrukevičius.
“It’s no wonder that the Lithuanian delegation is veteran, because this attitude has been formed,” he added.
According to him, there are exceptions in Lithuania as well: conservatives Gabrielius Landsbergis and Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė were first elected to the EP, and only later entered national politics and entered the Seimas.
“Of course, a young member of the EP is not necessarily an active member of the EP,” said M. Baltrukevičius.
However, according to the VPAI analyst, legislation alone is not the only activity of MEPs that can be used to assess the activity of politicians.
He gave the example of conservative Rasa Juknevičienė. Although the politician has been appointed main and shadow rapporteur only once this term, she holds a high position and is the deputy chair of the group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats).
“It is necessary to understand that the faction is a large mechanism, it can take a lot of time, which is not available for other initiatives,” said M. Baltrukevičius.
According to the official page of the EP, among the Lithuanian MEPs, P. Auštrevičius was appointed the main speaker by the responsible committee the most times, and J. Olekas – the shadow speaker. “Countryman” Bronis Ropė is also active in this area, whom he appointed as shadow rapporteur six times this term.
At that time, the conservative Liudas Mažylis and the former leader of the Labor Party, Viktors Uspaskichs, were never appointed by the committees either as main or shadow speakers during this term.
In the years 2019-2024, Lithuania was represented by 11 MEPs.
EP elections in Lithuania will be held on June 9, during which the same number of MEPs will be elected as five years ago – 11.
Tags: MEPs Lithuania associate activity legislation size delegation
-
