Dear European Parliament,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

According to the statistics for the 7th term, Parliament sat for a total of 260 days during the 7th term (July 2009 to April 2014). According to Parliament’s calendar, the number of sitting days during the 6th parliamentary term was 288 days.

The European Parliament and NGOs, such as VoteWatchEurope, list the share of plenary days attended by each MEP during one specific term. My question concerns how this attendance ratios are computed in some specific cases.

I am aware that the official attendance lists of any given session day can be consulted in the section of the EP website containing the minutes of plenary (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en...) sittings by first clicking on a date in the calendar and then on “Attendance list”.

Moreover, for the MEPs of the 6th plenary term, there have been attendance list recorded as a pdf. See for example here (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/mepatt/leg...).

However, for some MEPs there is a discrpancy between the minutes in the plenary and the attendance list in their profile. Where does the discrepancy come from?

- Catherine STIHLER got her attendance adjusted by the 23 days of maternity leave. Which period was her maternity leave?
- Silvana KOCH-MEHRIN got her attendance adjusted by 59 days of maternity leave and 22 recorded votes. Whic period was her maternity leave, what do those extra recorded votes mean and did she get her daily allowance for those extra recorded votes and why are those recorded votes not listed in the attendance registe?
- Alexander Graf LAMBSDORFF got his attendance adjusted by 39 recorded votes. Same questions as above.
- Jana HYBÁŠKOVÁ got her attendance adjusted by 62 recorded votes. Same questions as above.
- Beniamino DONNICI got his attendance adjusted by a judgment of the European Court of Justice of 30 April 2009. What does this mean? When did the MEP in fact become a MEP, i.e., on which date did his period of attendance start to count?

Often, you are refering in your answers to the NGO VoteWatchEurope. In this case the attendance days for the 6th term on VoteWatch are listed with 299 days (see here http://term6.votewatch.eu/cx_mep_details...), wereas your statistics speak of 288 days. Where does the difference come from?

Yours faithfully,

Christian Elmar

Registre, Parlamento Europeo

OUR REF A(2024)13067

Dear Mr Elmar,

We acknowledge receipt of your request of 24 September. You will receive a reply within 15 working days.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TRANSPARENCY

European Parliament
European Parliamentary Research Service
Directorate for the Library
[email address]

Registre, Parlamento Europeo

OUR REF A(2024)13067

Dear Mr Elmar,

We acknowledge receipt of your request of 24 September. You will receive a reply within 15 working days.

Yours sincerely,

ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS TRANSPARENCY

European Parliament
European Parliamentary Research Service
Directorate for the Library
[email address]

Service d'information du citoyen, Parlamento Europeo

A(2014)13067

LF/ma

 

Dear Mr Elmar,

The Citizens’ Enquiries Unit of the European Parliament (EP) has been
asked to reply to your request for information, dated 24 September 2014,
concerning MEP attendance in plenary session during the 6th parliamentary
term.

As you are aware, these attendance lists are available online on Europarl
on the [1]webpage of the MEPs elected to the European Parliament during
the 6th legislature.

 

Parliament would like to clarify that these lists were produced on a
one-off basis ahead of the 2009 elections to the European Parliament, at
the end of the 6th parliamentary term on request by Parliament's Bureau.

 

This attendance record was based on the Minutes and the voting record of
plenary sittings, i.e. the attendance register signed every day by Members
as published in the Minutes and/or the roll call votes published as an
Annex to these Minutes. This one-off publication was produced for the term
of office for each MEP spanning from 20 July 2004 till 26 March 2009. The
last sittings which took place in April and May 2009 were therefore not
taken into account, bringing the total number of days for plenary sessions
covered by this exercise to 288.

 

Regarding the case of individual Members you mention, and in general, we
would like to refer to the [2]Implementing measures for the Statute of
Members of the European Parliament, and notably its Articles 12 and 31
relating to MEP attendance in plenary.

 

As pointed out by Article 12, point 2, when a Member has forgotten to sign
the register of attendance, attendance may be attested by other documents
proving the presence of the Member in the session. Total attendance is
therefore adjusted when for example a Member participated in roll call
votes, but did not sign the attendance register. In such cases, the days
justified in such a manner were added to the total number of days
attended.

 

As pointed out in Article 31, point 4, if a Member is on maternity leave,
the number of sittings covered by the maternity leave (up to 9 months) is
subtracted from the total number of sittings held during the mandate in
order to calculate attendance figures. In such cases the total attendance
figure is adjusted to cover the number of days for which a presence needed
to be certified by the signature or the participation in the roll call
votes.

 

In one specific case (Beniamino Donnici), please note that the first date
of his EP mandate was 29 March 2007 following a [3]decision of the Court
of Justice. For further information related to this, please consult the
decision in full.

 

We hope you will find the above information useful and thank you for your
interest in the work of the European Parliament.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Citizens' Enquiries Unit

www.europarl.europa.eu/askEP

 

Disclaimer :

Please note that the information given by the Citizens' Enquiries Unit of
the European Parliament is not legally binding

 

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/di...
2. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/E...
3. http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/do...

Service d'information du citoyen, Parlamento Europeo

Service d'information du citoyen would like to recall the message, "Your question to the European Parliament REF GEDA A(2014)13067".

Service d'information du citoyen, Parlamento Europeo

A(2014)13067

LF/ma

 

Dear Mr Elmar,

 

The Citizens’ Enquiries Unit of the European Parliament (EP) has been
asked to reply to your request for information, dated 24 September 2014,
concerning MEP attendance in plenary session during the 6th parliamentary
term.

 

As you are aware, these attendance lists are available online on Europarl
on the [1]webpage of the MEPs elected to the European Parliament during
the 6th legislature.

 

Parliament would like to clarify that these lists were produced on a
one-off basis ahead of the 2009 elections to the European Parliament, at
the end of the 6th parliamentary term on request by Parliament's Bureau.

 

This attendance record was based on the Minutes and the voting record of
plenary sittings, i.e. the attendance register signed every day by Members
as published in the Minutes and/or the roll call votes published as an
Annex to these Minutes. This one-off publication was produced for the term
of office for each MEP spanning from 20 July 2004 till 26 March 2009. The
last sittings which took place in April and May 2009 were therefore not
taken into account, bringing the total number of days for plenary sessions
covered by this exercise to 288.

 

Regarding the case of individual Members you mention, and in general, we
would like to refer to the [2]Implementing measures for the Statute of
Members of the European Parliament, and notably its Articles 12 and 31
relating to MEP attendance in plenary.

 

As pointed out by Article 12, point 2, when a Member has forgotten to sign
the register of attendance, attendance may be attested by other documents
proving the presence of the Member in the session. Total attendance is
therefore adjusted when for example a Member participated in roll call
votes, but did not sign the attendance register. In such cases, the days
justified in such a manner were added to the total number of days
attended.

 

As pointed out in Article 31, point 4, if a Member is on maternity leave,
the number of sittings covered by the maternity leave (up to 9 months) is
subtracted from the total number of sittings held during the mandate in
order to calculate attendance figures. In such cases the total attendance
figure is adjusted to cover the number of days for which a presence needed
to be certified by the signature or the participation in the roll call
votes.

 

In one specific case (Beniamino Donnici), please note that the first date
of his EP mandate was 29 March 2007 following a [3]decision of the Court
of Justice. For further information related to this, please consult the
decision in full.

 

We hope you will find the above information useful and thank you for your
interest in the work of the European Parliament.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Citizens' Enquiries Unit

[4]www.europarl.europa.eu/askEP

 

Disclaimer :

Please note that the information given by the Citizens' Enquiries Unit of
the European Parliament is not legally binding

 

References

Visible links
1. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/di...
2. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/E...
3. http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/do...
4. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/askEP

Dear European Parliament,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of European Parliament's handling of my FOI request 'Attendance Days MEPs'.

1. How many plenary sitting days did now the 6th parliamentary session have? If it is not 288 days, might it then be 297days?
2. If it is 297days, why does then the webpage votewatch Europe, given your data, report on 299days? See here for example for one MEP http://term6.votewatch.eu/cx_mep_details...
3. If the attendance ratios get corrected for maternity leaves, recorded votes and other things, I would like to know how to find this out for plenary sittings in the 7th parliamentary term, as you do not provide pdf files for attendance anymore.

Thank you.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/atten...

Yours faithfully,

Christian

TAUB Alexandra, Parlamento Europeo

Our ref A(2014)13067

Dear Mr Mr Elmar, 
  
We acknowledge receipt of your request of 14 October 2014.
 
Since this is a request for information rather than a request for a
specific document, we have forwarded your request to the appropriate
service for response (Citizens' Enquiry Service). 
  
For future reference, please use the following online forms for:

Requests for information: 
[1]https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/ab...
 

Requests for documents:
[2]https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/Re...

Kind regards,

Transparency - Public Access to Documents
European Parliament

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/ab...
2. https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/Re...

TAUB Alexandra, Parlamento Europeo

Our ref A(2014)13067

Dear Mr Elmar, 
  
We acknowledge receipt of your request of 14 October 2014.
 
Since this is a request for information rather than a request for a
specific document, we have forwarded your request to the appropriate
service for response (Citizens' Enquiry Service). 
  
For future reference, please use the following online forms for:

Requests for information: 
[1]https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/ab...
 

Requests for documents:
[2]https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/Re...

Kind regards,

Transparency - Public Access to Documents
European Parliament

 

 

References

Visible links
1. https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/ab...
2. https://www.secure.europarl.europa.eu/Re...

Service d'information du citoyen, Parlamento Europeo

A(2014)14456

LF/md

 

Dear Mr Elmar,

The Citizens’ Enquiries Unit of the European Parliament (EP) has been
asked to reply to a further request for information on your part, dated 13
October 2014, concerning MEP attendance in plenary session during the 6th
parliamentary term.

We would inform you that, according to our records, 298 sittings took
place during the 6th legislative term i.e. 288 resulting from the
attendance records you have perused (but they only consider data until 26
March 2009), plus 10 more taken after the statistics were published (1 and
2 April, 21-24 April and 4-7 May).

VoteWatch lists 299 sittings on the data concerning individual MEPs, but
the sittings listed on the calendar published on their homepage for the
6th legislative term are 298.  [1]VoteWatch may have the explanation for
the divergence.

The statistical data relating to the attendance lists published by
Parliament concerning the 6th legislature were a one-off procedure. The
exercise has not been reproduced at the end of the 7th legislature and
thus no adjustment or corrections were performed for the reasons
contemplated in the [2]Implementing measures for the Statute of Members of
the European Parliament concerning periods of absence and financial
consequences thereof.

Until the 10th of March 2014, the Minutes of each plenary sitting included
only a list showing the names of the Members who had signed the attendance
register. An amendment to [3]Rule 148 of the Rules of Procedure entered
into force on 10 March 2014 and since then the minutes include two lists:

–    a list of the Members "present", for those who have signed the
attendance register;

–    a list of the Members "excused", for those who have been excused from
attending by the President.

The President may excuse Members from attending Plenary sittings on the
grounds mentioned in Article 31(3) and (4) of the Implementing Measures
for the Statute for Members, i.e. ill-health, serious family
circumstances, presence elsewhere on mission on behalf of Parliament,
expectation of childbirth and maternity leave.

We hope you will find the above information useful and thank you for your
interest in the work of the European Parliament.

Yours sincerely,

Citizens' Enquiries Unit

[4]www.europarl.europa.eu/askEP 

 

Disclaimer : Please note that the information given by the Citizens'
Enquiries Unit of the European Parliament is not legally binding

 

References

Visible links
1. http://term6.votewatch.eu/static/contact...
2. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/E...
3. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getD...
4. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/askEP