2 2

Working paper February 2013

Foundation Francisco Manuel dos Santos Charter of Principles

Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos herein proposes to think about, to study and to con- tribute to a better knowledge of the Portuguese reality. Its aim is to cooperate in the effort of solution of the problems of the society, to the benefit of all Portuguese people and of the generations to come. In order to reach this aim, Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos shall promote the realization of studies, investigation works and other initiatives which, obeying to the highest standards of rigor and quality, allow a better understanding of the reality, submit real solutions and recommendations to those who have to decide, deepen the debate around the great national problems and contribute to the justice, to the development and to the reinforcement of social cohesion. The activity of Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos shall be guided by the principles of dignity of the human being and of social solidarity and by the values of democracy, of freedom, of equally of opportunities, of the merit and of pluralism. Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos shall act in absolute independence in relation to all public and private powers, ideologies, opinion trends, philosophic trends, religious beliefs or confessions. Its corporate bodies are the guarantors of the fulfillment of the statutory norms, notably of its inde- pendence. Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos considers as essential to promote a more active involve- ment of the civil society in the reflexion and solution of national problems and, for such reason, it shall endeavor its best efforts to give to citizens the widest knowledge of its initiatives and projects. In such sense, Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos shall seek to provide the Portuguese society with clear, objective and accurate information on the results of its activities, further guaranteeing the maximum transparency in regards to its organization, its purposes its sources of financing and its activities. Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos is of the opinion that the realization of enlarged and plural public debates around its recommendations is a purpose as important as the realization of research studies and works. In the pursuit of its activities, Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos seeks to be faithful to the commitment of social responsibility that constitutes its mission, such as defined by its founders.

Rua Tierno Galvan, Torre 3, 9ºJ 1070-274 Lisboa Portugal www.ffms.pt [email protected] Phone number: + 351 21 381 84 47

Impressão: Guide Artes Gráficas, Lda.

The views and opinions expressed in this text are the sole responsibility of its authors and do not bind the Foundation Francisco Manuel dos Santos (FFMS). Total or partial reproduction of the text should be requested from the authors or the FFMS.

nd 2PORTUGAL REPORT to the IN FundaçãoTHE EUROPEAN Francisco ManuelPARLIAMENT dos Santos

Professor Alexander H. Trechsel & Professor Richard Rose

In collaboration with: Dr. Daniela Corona Dr. Filipa Raimundo Dr. José Santana-Pereira European Union DemocracyJorge Fernandes Observatory (EUDO) Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies European University Institute

Final Draft January 23, 2013

1 3

Table of contents:

1. Introduction 2. The EP across time: a steady growth of power 3. Power within the EP 4. Portugal within the EP 4.1 Electing Portuguese representatives: the EP elections 4.2 The Portuguese MEPs’ background 4.3 The Portuguese MEPs in the EP structures 4.4 What do Portuguese MEPs do in the plenary? 4.5 How do Portuguese MEPs perceive their work in the EP? 5. Conclusions

3 5

Executive summary

This report addresses a central pillar of the EU’s institutional architecture in which Portugal can play an important role and foster its national priorities: the European Parliament (EP). As stressed in the first report, in order to achieve their goals in the European setting, small and medium states must rely on smart power. The EP, in that respect, has gained over time a pivotal role in the European legislative endeavors in that it co-decides with the Council in (almost) all areas of EU competence.

The report starts off by summarizing the major developments of the EU architecture for what regards the enhancement of the EP’s role. It then analyzes the composition and the main features of the Portuguese representation in the current Parliament: the national political parties Portuguese MEPs belong to, their political preferences, their placement in the European political landscape, and their performance in the EP’s legislative activity. The interviews of current and former Portuguese MEPs offer an important added value and an innovative angle to the analysis of the role played by this country in the European arena.

Within the institutional architecture of the European Union, the power of the European Parliament strongly evolved over the various rounds of Treaty changes. Born as a merely advisory body, with no real powers in European legislative activity, the EP has been able to take advantage of its powers in the budgetary sphere during the 1970s so as to become nowadays an almost perfect co-legislator, standing on an equal footing with the Council of Ministers. In 1979, the first direct election of the EP gave momentum to this process by granting the institution and its members a democratic “imprimatur”. Since then, the EP grew also in size. This evolution has rendered the EP one of the largest and most powerful parliaments in the world.

To make use of its (prima facie limited) power Portugal needs to (a) be present in the strategic channels within the EP and (b) make sure its political personnel, both MEPs and staff, are of the highest quality. This is an absolutely necessary condition to extract benefits from Portuguese presence in the EP.

In this• report,number Portuguese of Portuguese personnel MEPs in the diminished EP is characterized over the years as follows:

The along with the increasing number of EU Member States: having started off with 24 MEPs in 1986, the Portuguese representation is now composed by 22. However, the more significant drop in numerical powers of the Portuguese delegation to the EP becomes visible when we look at the joint effect of increased numbers of MEPs and the lower absolute number of EP seats held by Portuguese representatives. Indeed, between 1986 and today, the proportion of Portuguese MEPs dropped by over one third, from 4.6% to 2.9%. The same happened to similar-sized countries, such as Belgium and Greece. It is worth noting, however, that EU enlargement rounds had

5 7 deeper downsizing effects on the representation of larger Member States, • such as Germany.

Portugal has one of the highest turnover rates in the EP, with 68% new MEPs, compared to the EU 27 average of 50%. Some of the big countries have significantly lower turnover rates, for example the UK (28%) or Germany (41%). Consequently, Portugal loses a considerable amount of experience and cumulated knowledge following each European election, with significant consequences for the country’s capacity to exert power in the EP. A low systematic turnover is a condition pointed out as necessary by most observers before any parliamentarian is ready to take full advantage of the institutional opportunities opened in the structure • under which she operates.

The most frequent professional background of Portuguese MEPs is that of law, and full time politicians tend to be overreprepro-elitesented in biased the EP compared to the situation at the national level. Moreover, in occupational • terms, the Portuguese political class seems to be rather .

PERMREP, the institutional structure that links Portuguese MEPs with their national government, offers mixed results. This report shows evidence that to a large extent Portugal still lacks a coherent and integrated national strategy, supported by a professional and sophisticated staff that delivers that strategy to MEPs in Brussels. However, PERMREP’s efficiency is said to be increasing over the past few years, particularly after the Portuguese presidency, during which • Portugal had to articulate a European policy.

The articulation between MEPs, political parties, and national parliament is still insufficient. There is a general perception that the European Affairs Committee, in the AR [Portuguese national legislature], is the only body incorporating a ‘European level of governance’. Hence, this report makes clear that instead of using a policy-driven approach, requesting MEPs’ presence in sectorial committees, the Portuguese parliament still channels all the input from the European level (particularly MEPs insights) through the European affairs committee.

About the Portuguese presence in strategic internal bodies of the EP this report concludes• that:

The committees where Portugal has been more strongly represented throughout the years of Portuguese membership are Agriculture and Fisheries (AGRI/PECH), but also Employment (EMPL), Budget (BUDG), • Economy and Monetary issues (ECON) and Regionalleadership Development structures (REGI).

Portuguese MEPs are not strongly present in the of the EP: there is just one EP committee chaired by a Portuguese and two committees with Portuguese vice-chairs. However, in the current legislature, around one third of Portuguese MEPs have been chosen to act

8 6 committee coordinators

as , mainly as a result of the fact that they are at theirallocation second of legislative mandate. reports The role of committee coordinator is one of the most desired in the EP. Moreover, Portugal is also quite privileged in the : over the years, its MEPs have taken up a leading role in the decision-making process, ranking better than their • colleagues from larger Member States, such as France or Italy.

The degree of cohesion of the Portuguese MEPs in terms of roll-call votes in the EP’s plenary is substantially lower in the current legislature that in the past one. However, this varies according to the nature of the policy areas: for instance, in the current legislature, cohesiveness in terms of fisheries, budget issues, agriculture and economy/monetary policies has decreased considerably compared to the previous parliament, but consensus in areas like regional development and transport/tourism has become stronger.

For a medium sized country like Portugal a policy of alliance is crucial to achieve in order to reach its political objectives in the EP. Portugal should be part of winning coalitions, particularly by trying to join coalitions made of countries with similar policy interests. In this report it becomes clear that for strategic issues, Portugal does have an intra-national articulation of interests. In matters considered as vital for the country, MEPs tend to vote cohesively, regardless of their partisan affiliation. At the international level, Portugal seems to have a random, unsystematic policy of alliance. It does not have a natural ‘voting bloc’. Instead, in the EP, Portugal does not pursue its own agenda, but goes with the flow.

7 9 1. Introduction

What do we mean when we say that a country has more or less power in a multinational and multidimensional institution like the European Parliament (EP)? Are the channels of representation primarily national, cutting across partisan lines, with a defined ‘national interest’ or, conversely, do we see the emergence of a national-European cleavage as the key divide in the formation of voting coalitions on the floor of the EP? Do small countries like Portugal really have a voice in one of the most important institutional components of the European power machinery? These are some of the questions addressed in this report. We measure how a small country like Portugal, accounting only for a limited economical, financial, and political part of the pool of EU resources, can use the institutional opportunities opened by the EP to make its voice heard.

To provide answers to these questions, the present report contains four distinct parts. This introduction is followed by a concise description of the target institution - the European Parliament – and its evolution over time. It is important to introduce the reader to the developments that affected the European Parliament over the past decades, as this historical account underlines the expansion of powers that the EP has obtained. Even if the Portuguese delegation to the EP did not grow in size (it even became smaller since Portugal joined), the collective power of the institution has increased significantly, therefore directly impacting on the importance of its members in European legislating. of within Having discussed the power the EP in section 2 of this report, we then turn our attention to power the EP. Here we briefly present the functions and institutional design of the EP, its internal structures with the complex committee system, its parliamentary party groups and the leadership bodies.

With these basic – but fundamental – notions about the European Parliament and its functioning in mind we then turn to the most substantive part of this report: Portugal within the European Parliament. We divide this core part into four subtitles: first, we provide the reader with an account of how Portuguese citizens send their representatives to Brussels and Strasbourg. Central to this is the European Parliamentary Elections and we focus on the most recent ones of 2009. How did political parties campaign in the 2009 EP elections? What were the dimensions of conflict? How did votes translate into seats? Our second subtitle deals with the Portuguese delegation within the EP. Who are the MEPs representing Portugal? How does this representation translate into roles played by Portuguese MEPs within the various internal bodies of the EP and how do Portuguese political parties manage to extract pork for the country using their presence in those bodies? How representative are these MEPs compared to their national counterparts in Lisbon? This brief “sociology” of Portuguese MEPs is then followed by an analysis of their behavior within the hemicycle. Only about one third of all votes taken in the plenary in Brussels and Strasbourg are so called “roll-call votes”. For the latter we have precise figures about who voted what. Even though roll-call votes only represent a minority of all votes being taken in the EP, we find this data useful to have a closer look at Portuguese

10 8 voting behavior within the European Parliament. Having established a somewhat objective behavioral profile of MEPs, we finally let the latter speak 1 for themselves. Through numerous interviews with current MEPs from Portugal we offer a more subjective picture regarding the functioning of this large legislative body, its members’ attitudes towards the latter, their views on the role played by the Portuguese delegation etc. A final part then concludes the report.

1 The authors would like to thank all Portuguese MEPs who have accepted to contribute to our report by granting us an interview. A total of 22 invitations were sent to all current MEPs but only 15 were successful. Interviews were conducted between February and April 2012, mostly at the European Parliament Office in Portugal (in Lisbon) and at the European Parliament (in Brussels). The following MEPs have been interviewed: Carlos Coelho (10/2/2012, Lisbon); Ana Gomes (9/3/2012, Lisbon); Edite Estrela (9/3/2012, Lisbon); António Correia de Campos (9/3/2012, Lisbon); João Ferreira (12/3/2012, Lisbon); Rui Tavares (16/3/2012, Lisbon); Maria do Céu Patrão Neves (23/3/2012, Lisbon); Vital Moreira (23/2/2013, Lisbon); Nuno Melo (30/3/2012); Elisa Ferreira (10/4/2012, Brussels); Marisa Matias (10/4/2012, Lisbon); Paulo Rangel (10/4/2012, Brussels); Diogo Feio (10/4/2012, Brussels); Ilda Figueiredo (20/4/2012). An interview was also scheduled with Miguel Portas two weeks before he passed away. We are equally grateful for his willingness to collaborate. The authors would also like to thank Paulo Sande, former head of the European Parliament Office in Portugal.

911 2. The EP across time: a steady growth of power

The role of the Europeanvis-à-vis Parliament (EP) within the institutional architecture of the European Union is the result of a strong and long-standing battle in order to gain more power the European2 Commission and the Council of Ministers (the original decision-making body) . The history of the developments of the European Parliamentary system, in fact, can be effectively seen as the history of an assembly originally designated to merely express its advice to the Council capable to become over3 the years a powerful co-deciding actor on an equal footing with the Council . Today, legislating at the European level is undertaken following a bicameral logic with two chambers having a quasi-equal say.

The composition, the powers and the way of appointment of the members of the4 EP changed profoundly since the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome of 1958 . At that time, in fact, the “European Parliamentary Assembly” (forerunner of the current EP) had no legislative power and was composed by 142 parliamentarians drawn from the national parliaments of member states (MS). Its main task was to scrutinize the activities budgetaryof the EC, powerswhile it had basically no power vis-à-vis the Council. The “democratic supervision” over the Commission along with the extension5 of the Parliament’s under the Treaty of Luxembourg in 1970 were the triggers used by the EP to get more power within the institutional framework of the EU. The Parliament was on its way of acquiring a more prominent role in the decision-making process in Brussels.

During the 1970s the dual mandate of MEPs – simultaneously members of the EP and of their respective national parliamentary chambers – came under severe critique. Their increasing involvement in Brussels-based activities required from MEPs a full time engagement. Also, the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament was only indirect, through national elections. The pressure for both more legitimacy and efficiency of MEPs led to the design of EP elections, which were first put in place in 1979. Since, the EP made use of its new democratic status: it had become the only European institution with a direct mandate given to its members by European citizens. This clearly helped the EP to claim more power vis-à-vis the Commission and the Council. In particular, it asked for being

2 A large literature exists on the subject, see among others: R. Corbett, F. Jacobs, M. Shackleton, The European Parliament, Harper Publishing, London, 2007; O. Costa, Le Parlement européen, Assemblée délibérante, Institut d’Etudes européennes, 2001; O. Costa, F. Saint Martin, Le Parlement européen, La Documentation Française, Paris, 2009; ‘The European Parliament’, in J. Peterson and M. Shackleton, The Institutions of the European Union, OUP, 2006; ‘La Construction d’un Parlement: 50 ans d’histoire du Parlement européen, Institut universitaire européen de Florence, sous la direction d'Yves Mény, Luxembourg, Office des publications officielles des Communautés3 européennes, 2009. In order to improve readability, we will use the term ‘European Union’ even when referring to the4 period when the legal personality was limited to the European Community. Indeed the European Parliament firstly appeared in the international scenario as the ‘"Common Assembly" of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) established in 1951 by the Treaty of5 Paris. A second treaty on the same subject, strengthening Parliament's powers, was signed in Brussels in 1975.

12 10 granted the power to bargain with the Council over the content of legislative acts. cooperation procedure The first important step towards the attainment of this goal was the introduction of the by the Single European Act of 1986. Under this procedure, the Council and the EP started to establish a more frank and open dialogue in the negotiation process and the EP, along with theinformally Commission, could introduce modifications to the content of legislative measures. At the same time the EP, by the adoption of declaratory resolutions, started6 to have its say in the designation of the new European Commission . In the same year, in the aftermath of the accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Union, the number of MEPs rose7 from 434 to 518 with the arrival of 60 Spanish and 24 Portuguese members .

The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 provided significant modifications to the structure of the European Union; among others, it introduced two major new instruments‘codecision at the disposal procedure’ of the EP, namely the possibility to ask the European Commission to present legislative8 proposals and a new legislative procedure, the so called . This latter, in particular, constituted a milestone in the process leading to a strengthened legislative role for the EP. With the codecision procedure, the Council and the EP must both agree on the content of legislation to be adopted.

In the following years the EP gave proof of its determination in fulfilling its role as co-legislator and also as “guardian” of the Executive. In 1999, under President Jacques Santer, the9 European Commission collectively resigned under the pressure of the EP and in the same year the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force; it provided some important changes to the codecision procedure with the intention of strengthening the EP's position while extending its applicability considerably. The Nice Treaty, 10 which entered into force in 2003, has subsequently confirmed this trend .

The last round of major treaty changes went through a failed Constitutional Treaty to result in the currently applicable Lisbon Treaty. The latter entered into force in December 2009 and has marked the final step in recognizing the role of the EP in the legislative and budgetary areas and in the Commission’s appointment. The current 754 MEPs forming the European Parliament, in fact, are now asked to legislate with the Council by the ordinary legislative procedure provided in art. 294 TFEU (as the codecision has been renamed by the new 6 infra This informal practice has been then formalized by the Maastricht Treaty and subsequently reinforced7 by the Treaty of Amsterdam and Nice. For the current regime, see in the text. 8 See Table 1 below. The functioning and the consequences of the introduction of the codecision procedure in the EU decision-making will be widely treated in the next report devoted to “ Legislating through Vertical9provisional and Horizontal Deliberations”. For the chronology of events see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission 10( ). In particular, the Nice Treaty provided the application of the co-decision procedure for the adoption of measures in areas traditionally “sensitive” for the MS, such as asylum and immigration policies and measures in the field of judicial cooperation in civil matters.

1113 11 Treaty) in (almost) all the areas of EU competence ; they formally elect the President of the12 Commission and, additionally, approve by a vote of consent13 its other members ; they now “co-decide” on the entire budget with the Council . democratic legitimacy To sum up, the history of the European Parliament saw three major extensions going hand in hand. First, it extended its by having its members rely on a direct rather than an indirect mandate provided through continent-wide, simultaneously held elections in the Member States of the European Union. This democratic extension took place in 1979 and seven European Parliamentary elections – the second largest democratic elections in the world if measured by the size of the electorate – took place so far.

Second, the EP gradually extended its powers. No Treaty change limited the powers of the EP – each single major revision also concerned the EP and led to an increasingly strong position of this legislative body within the European landscape. Today, it has become a legislative chamber on (almost) equal footing with the Council of Ministers. According to some observers, such as Simon Hix or Peter Mair, it has become one of the most powerful parliamentary chambers in the world.

Third, the EP has gradually extended its size. With the accession of new Member States, it has seen its size more than quadruple. It has now become one of the largest and complex, multilingual Parliaments in the world, sieging in two different cities in two different countries on an alternating basis.

From the above, it is quite easy to infer how important is the actual role of the EP within the EU institutional system and, consequently, how important it should be for a medium size member state as Portugal to act “on the parliamentary side”, that is, through its elected members, to ensure that its national interests are being heard in Brussels.

Indeed, when Portugal joined the European Union in 1986 the European project was at a crossroad and the EP had just begun to have a stronger and clearer role in the decision-making system: the cooperation procedure – as we have seen, the forerunner of the current ordinary legislative procedure – was introduced one year later with the entry into force of the Single European Act. In the same period, the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, published the White Paper on Completing the Internal Market that listed around 300 legislative measures to be taken to enable the completion of the internal market. Furthermore,. plans to introduce the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), thus setting the path to the later adoption of the Euro were put on the agenda of the Commission

11 Agricultural policy (art. 38 TFEU ss.) and many measures in the area of freedom, security and justice (see art. 78, 81, 87 TFEU) are now due to be adopted by the EP and the Council trough 12codecision. 13 See art. 17 TUE and art. 234 TFEU for the motion of censure. See art. 314 TFEU.

14 12 Since then, an increasing number of European laws have been adopted to foster EU integration and the level of harmonization of policies among member states,. According to EUR-Lex, the official database of EU law, between 1990 and today more than 70,000 legislative acts have been adopted by the EP and the Council acting together or by the Council or the Commission acting alone. In August 2012, 19,967 EU acts are in force. Among theTable policy 1 fields within the EU competences, the most regulated sectors are: Agriculture, External Relations, Environment,Table 1: Legislation Consumer in force and in Health 1.11.2012 protection ( ). Policy fields Number of acts

General, financial and institutional matters 1324 Customs Union and free movement of goods 924 Agriculture 3172 Fisheries 1109 Freedom of movement for workers and social policy 571 Right of establishment and freedom to provide services 274 Transport Policy 735 Competition Policy 1794 Taxation 186 Economic and monetary policy and free movement of capital 539 External Relations 3650 Energy 406 Industrial policy and internal market 1636 Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments 391 Environment, consumers and health protection 1692 Science, information, education and culture 450 Law relating to undertakings 119 Common Foreign and Security Policy 530 Area of freedom, security and justice 667 People’s Europe 21 TableSource: 1EUR-Lex, Directory of European Union Legislation in force

shows that, in practice,14 there is almost no policy area exclusively regulated at the national level. For instance, there is EU regulation that sets the ceiling for roaming charges, and measures aiming at protecting the air passenger rights, as well as the rights of passengers travelling by bus or by train. These are examples of legislation to which the EP strongly contributed to increase consumer protection across Europe. The EP, as co-legislator along with the Council, has been able to influence the content of many of these acts.

Thus, the understanding of the role of the EP in the Brussels arena is of outmost importance to fully grasp the working of the European Union. Let us also recall that the EP is the only directly elected institution at the European level. Citizens need to know what the EP exactly is, which powers it has and how it uses its prerogatives. 14 In July 1988, Jacques Delors predicted that: “in ten years, 80% of the legislation related to economics, maybe also to taxes and social affairs, will be of Community origin”. According to a recent study conducted by the UK House of Commons, the proportion of national laws based on EU laws in the EU member states ranges from around 6% to 84%.

1315

The next section offers a useful overview of the EP’s internal organizational and operational rules, depicting the context where the Portuguese members of the 3.EP Powerare placed within and perform the EP their important role.

From a rather abstract point of view, legislatures share a variety of features that provideAssembleia opportunities da República for political actors to exert influence on the policy-making process. Those features are shared by all legislatures, be it the Portuguese , the US House of Representatives, or the European Parliament. To properly understand how legislatures function15 as institutional channels for political influence, let us start with Mezey’s definition of a legislature as an ‘elected body of people that acts collegially and that has at least the formal but not necessarily the exclusive power to enact laws binding on all members of a specific geopolitical entity’. This definition accurately encapsulates16 the idea of legislatures as having a ‘collegial, rather than hierarchical’ nature . After each election, with the translation of votes into seats, legislatures undergo a process of internal organization that consists of ‘the allocation of resources and assignment 17 of parliamentary rights to individual legislatures or group of legislatures’ . This process enhances the efficiency of legislatures as it provides a twofold differentiation: hierarchical - or vertical - (with the allocation of whips, committee chairs, and vice-chairs) and horizontal (with specialization enabled by the division of labor). In practical terms, this means the establishment of committees, the election of the leadership bodies, and so forth.

Generally, one can distinguish Parliaments of discussion and Parliaments of work. While in the first, the major political battles take place in the Plenary, the latter type of Parliament delegates the political work to its committees. Prime examples for these two types of Parliaments are the House of Commons in the UK (Parliament of discussion) and the United States Congress (Parliament of work). The European Parliament clearly belongs to the second type – the Parliament of work – with its plenary being a comparatively weak locus of power. Political power in the EP is dispersed across an array of internal bodies set up with politically manageable size. Sidney Verba’s classic account on the relationship between size and the effectiveness of political decision-making clearly states that ‘the bulk of significant political decisions are made neither by individual, autonomous decision-makers nor by all the members of the political system, by the electorate, or by the rank and file of a political party. It is the face- to-face small group that one18 must look at if one is to find the locus of decision- making in political systems’ .

15 16 Mezey Michael L. 1979. Comparative Legislatures. Durham: Duke University Press Strom, Kaare. 1995. ‘Parliamentary Government and Legislative Organization’ in Herbert Doring17 (editor), Parliaments and Majority Rule in Western Europe. New York: Campus Verlag Krehbiel, Keith. 1991. Information and Legislative Organization. Ann Arbor: Michigan 18University Press Verba, Sidney. 1961. Small Groups and Political Behavior: A Study of Leadership. Princenton, N.J.: Princenton University Press

16 14 Regarding the EP, Verba’s quote serves as a reminder to go beyond the counting of seats in the plenary to determine the power of a Member State in the EP. To understand the degree of power that a country exerts in the EP, it is necessary to look at least at two dimensions: the internal organization of the EP and how parties use these institutional channels as a smart power instrument. We will thus first evaluate how Portugal performs within the parliamentary organization, a process that takes place after the elections and behind closed doors. In practical terms, this means to measure how many institutional resources – committee seats, chairs, vice-chairs, rapporteurs, and leadership positions – Portuguese members get in the internal bodies of the EP. We will depart from the assumption that each country gets an amount of resources that is proportional to (1) the number of MEPs it has in the plenary and to its sheer (2) size (see also our first report). For the second dimension, based on interviews with two thirds of the current Portuguese MEPs, we adduce some tentative answers to the question of the use of smart power in the EP. Put bluntly, we will look at the alliances and the Portuguese position in consensus- seeking matters.

We have seen how the EP was capable of obtaining its current powers over the years. It is now important to put some light on the way in which the EP works, its structure, the main actors and the functioning of the parliamentary “machinery” as a whole. For reasons of space we refrain from discussing these issues in full detail and have19 chosen instead to outline the main mechanisms and identify the major actors involved in the decision-making process. Thus, the next sections are dedicated to the internal bodies of the EP, and in particular the Parliamentary Party Groups:Groups, the EP Presidency and the Conference of Presidents.

Figure 1) Following the 2009 elections, seven Political Groups compose the EP’s hemicycle, made up by a total number of 754 members ( . The Political Groups are the following (in the inverse order of number of seats per group): European People’s Party (EPP), Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), The Greens – European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA), European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), European United Left, Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL), Europe 20 of Freedom and Democracy (EFD), and finally a group of non attached members.

Each Political Group has its internal structure formed by a Bureau, a President and Vice-Presidents. It is within the Political Groups that the legislative and non- legislative texts to be adopted are analyzed first; and the positionnational of the delegations Political Groups on an issue is normally adopted and followed by the MEPs belonging to them. Groups’ members of the same nationality form representing the link with the national parties. The role of the national supra 19 See note 1 containing references to books devoted on the analysis of the EP structure and functioning. For the formationth of political groups and relatedsee activities, see rules 30 and 31 of20 the EP Rules of procedure, 7 Parliamentary term, December 2009. For the affiliation of Portuguese MEPs to EP Party Groups p. 37 of the first report ‘How size matters: Portugal as a EU member’ by Richard Rose and Alexander Trechsel. For the analysis of the composition of the current EP see below.

1517 delegations inside the groups is very important because they are in the position to raise interest and attention regarding a parliamentary measure affecting a particular ‘domestic’ interest. Indeed, it occasionally happens that in order to ‘protect’ such national interest the members of a national delegation vote differentlyFigure 1: European from the Parliament rest of21 the political2009-2014 group they belong to .

EPP (265) S&D (184) ALDE (84) Greens – EFA (55) ECR (54) EUL-NGL (35) EFD (32) Non-Inscrits (27)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009 Leadership structures President of the EP 22 The , whose term of office is two and a half years , has mainly duties of direction of the works in the EP and of representation23 of the Institution in international relations and to the otherVice-Presidents EU Institutions . The President24 also participates in the adoptionBureau of legislative measures and of the budget . These duties may be delegated to the 14 ; the latter, along with the President,Quaestors form the that takes organizational, financial and administrative decisions concerning the EP. The Bureau is attended also by the , which are responsible for administrative and financial matters concerning MEPs individually.

provisional 21 22 See Votewatch.eu and the analysis below in the text ( ). According to an unofficial practice, normally the President of the EP is chosen among the two major groups, namely the EPP and the S&D. Since January 16, 2012, the President of the EP is the 23German Martin Schultz, from the S&D group. 24 See Rule 20 of the EP Rules of Procedure. In particular, the President signs into law the Union budget and co-signs with the President in office of Council legislative acts adopted through co-decision.

18 16 Conference of Presidents

The is another important body of the EP, composed by the President of the EP and the chairs of the Political Groups. It is responsible for Conferencethe smooth of running Committee of the Chairs works in theConference EP and it ofde Delegationcides on inter-institutional Chairs 25 relations and relations with Member States and National Parliaments . The and the complete the leadership structure of the EP: the former collects theinter-parliamentary chairs of the EP delegationscommittees and and delegations its main taskto the consists joint parliament of reviewingary committees. the progress of work in committees; likewise, the latter fulfills these tasks for the Parliamentary Committees26

27 The EP is divided into twenty specialized parliamentary committees , and MEPs are allocated to work within these committees. They are at the core of the functioning of the EP; in fact, every decision finally adopted by the EP Plenary is first discussed at the committee level. The daily business of the committees consists in the consideration and adoption of reports and opinions, in fulfillment28 of Parliament’s legislative, budgetary scrutiny and agenda-setting roles .

For the adoption29 of legislative acts the role of the committees is of utmost importance . This is why the allocation of a draft proposal by the Commissionrapporteur or the Council is often contested among different committees. Once a draft proposal has been assigned to a specific committee this latter nominates a 30, which will be the key actor during the overall process of adoption of the act . This is particularly evident in the adoption of legislativevis-à-vis measures through the ordinary legislative procedure where the rapporteur has the main responsibility31 in the negotiations on the content of the act the Council. The committees scrutinize the progress of reports and adopt amendments that form the basis of the ‘mandate’ for the rapporteur and the EP negotiating teams.

To conclude: the previous sections have offered some theoretical approaches to the understanding of the EP. Also, we argued that the process of internal organization of the EP is of great importance for assessing power within the Parliament. A simple look at seats in the plenary does not suffice. Subsequently, we drew the attention to the abstract functioning of the internal bodies of the EP, outlining their powers and arguing why is it important for a country - via its political party representatives - to have a presence in those institutional 25 provisional 26 See Rules 25 of the EP Rules of Procedure. 27 See below in the text ( ). Besides these standing committees, in the EP have been also established sub-committees (e.g. a subcommittee on Monetary Affairs within the Economic Committee in the 1994-1999 legislature), temporary o special committees (e.g. special committeesupra on the financial, economic 28and social crisis in the period 2009-2011) and other ad hoc structures. For a complete description of the committees business, see R. Corbett, F. Jacobs and M. Shackleton,29 op. cit. Moreover, within each committee a very significant role is played by the Group coordinators, which coordinate the work of the members of their own Group and discuss forthcoming votes affecting30 the committee. Another important actor is the ‘shadow rapporteur’ that monitors a dossier for political groups other31 than that ofTable the rapporteur… 9 For a list of Portuguese MEPs fulfilling the role of rapporteur in the current parliamentary term, see below .

1719 channels. This section will look at these issues from a concrete, empirical point. Our data will allow us to shed light on how the Portuguese parties and MEPs perform with respect to obtaining payoffs in the internal bodies of the EP.

4. Portugal within the EP

4.1 Electing Portuguese representatives: the EP elections

st Portugal joined the EEC on January 1 1986, one and a half years after the European Parliamentary elections of June 1984. As a result, the 24 first Portuguese MEPs joining the European Parliament were chosen proportionally to those who were represented in the national parliament, until European elections were held. At that time, five parties were represented in the national parliament: the Social DemocraticFigure 2 Party (PSD), the Socialist Party (PS), the Democratic Reformist Party (PRD), the Social and Democratic Centre (CDS) and theFigure Communist 2: Results Party of the (PCP) European ( Elections). 1987-2009: Number of Elected MEPs

Source: CNE (www.cne.pt)

Since Portugal’s accession in 1986 there have been only two major changes in the number of Portuguese parties represented in the EP: first, PRD lost substantial electoral support and no MEP from this party was elected after 1987 (the party would eventually dissolve); second, a new left-wing/extreme-left party called Left Bloc (BE) emerged in 1999, obtaining its first seat in the EP in 2004.

The first European Parliamentary elections in Portugal were held eighteen months after the country’s accession, in July 1987. For the first time Portuguese citizens were able to elect their representatives for the EP, remaining in the Parliament until the holding of the successive, regular European Parliamentary

20 18 elections of June 1989. Since, and every five years, Portuguese citizens are called to elect their MEPs at the polls. Generally,32 turnout in these elections has been considerably low (less than 40%). According to a well-known theory, these patterns of weak participation in European elections in Portugal and other Member States are due to the fact that these elections are seen33 as second order elections, less important than the general national elections. Note, however, that with the extension of EU powers through the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon as well as due to the profound economic and financial crisis in Europe, this second-order characterization may lose some of its appeal in the future.

The most recent EP elections took place in June 2009. This was the first of three elections scheduled in that year in Portugal, opening a rather competitive electoral cycle. After three years without national elections, the Portuguese voters would be called to the polls in order to elect their representatives in the European Parliament (June), a new legislature (September) and their local administrators (October). 2009 is also a special year due to the fact that the first strong symptoms of a deep economic crisis were being felt. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most salient issues in the campaign leading to the EP elections focused on national concerns (i.e. the economic crisis, infrastructures, job creation) whereas European issues were seldom discussed by parties and candidates.

The electoral campaign officially started on 25 May, two weeks before the polling day. While 13 political parties/movements took part in the campaign, only five were actually expected to elect European representatives: the centre-left Socialist Party (PS), the centre-right Social Democrat Party (PSD), the Christian- democratic party34 (CDS-PP), the Left Bloc (BE) and the Unitary Democratic Coalition (CDU) . Four of these parties were present in the EP since 1986. The “new-left” party Left Bloc (BE), which had been created in the late 1990s as a conglomerate of very small left-wing parties, got its first MEP in 2004.

During the electoral campaign, political parties presented manifestos (or manifesto-like documents) to the voters. In these documents parties stressed their main political priorities. The BE has been the first party to come forward with its Euromanifesto and the right-wing parties were the last, while the PS started the campaign by presenting a translation of the manifesto of the Party of European Socialists and, afterward, by publishing an updated version with some references to the Portuguese context.

In view of the 2009 EP elections, a team of academics led by the European Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) at the EUI produced a Voting Advice Application – the EU Profiler (www.euprofiler.eu). This highly successful application

32 33 See data on turnout in www.cne.pt. European Journal of Political Research, 8 See Reif, K.; & Schmitt, H. (1980). Nine second-order national elections: A conceptual framework for the analysis of European Election results. West European Politics, 25 , 3-44. A more recent empirical analysis of this idea can be found in Schmitt, H. (2005). The European parliament election of June 2004: Still second-order? , 650- 679. 34 CDU is a coalition between the PCP (Communist Party) and the Greens.

1921 received over 2.5 million unique visitors and offered its users a personalized account of their own political priorities within the political landscape in each Member State. In the fall of 2009, it won the prestigious World E-Democracy Forum Award in Paris. Thanks to the coding of almost 9,000 party positions in the EU Profiler, we can draw political35 portraits of the partisan competition at the time of the 2009 EP elections . First, a two-dimensional approach allows us to show the placements of Portuguese parties on the two axes “socio-economic left vs. socio-economicFigure right” and3 “pro vs. anti EU integration”.

As we can see in , the Socialist Party (PS) and, to a lesser extent, the Social Democratic Party (PSD) display a stronger pro-EU integration attitude during the election campaign. Both CDS-PP and BE are closer to the middle point of the continuum between support and opposition to integration, even if the right-wing party is portrayed as somewhat pro-EU and the left-wing party as slightly anti-EU in 2009. The communist party (in coalition with the green party) is the only Portuguese political force represented36 in the European Parliament thatFigure displays 3: The aPortuguese clear anti-EU political position landscape in 2009 during. the 2009 EP elections

Source: EU Profiler: http://www.nccr-democracy.ch/euprofiler/

35 Treschel, A. and Mair, Peter. 2011. ‘When Parties (Also) Position Themselves: An Introduction to36 the EU Profiler’. Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 8: 1-20 This data is available at: http://www.nccr-democracy.ch/euprofiler/.

22 20 37 The party stances on the Lisbon Treaty , are quite representative of their general attitude towards European integration: the major parties, PSD and PS, defended the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty whereas CDS-PP, even though being favourable, contended that any treaty challenging national sovereignty should be submitted to a national referendum. By contrast, the CDU and the BE openly rejected it by stressing that the economic crisis has been proving that they have been right in their criticism of the EU economic approach as a whole. Figure 4 Thanks to the EU Profiler data, we can further disentangle the dimensions of political conflict in the EP elections. The “spidergrams” contained in display the positions of individual parties on seven dimensions and unequivocally show that the five political parties represented at the EP display a strong interest in the issue of environmental protection, but different stances in what regards other political dimensions. For instance, the BE and CDU are much more focused on the building of a liberal society and the expansion of the welfare state than the Socialist Party. Moreover, the PSD and CDS-PP focus very clearly and predominantly on issues such as law and order and the need to put restrictions to the financial and immigration policies, but CDS-PP’s focus on safety issues is much stronger than the one displayed by PSD. An interesting question is then, who crafts the EP electoral manifesto in Portuguese political Figureparties? 4: Issue positions of the five major political parties during the 2009 EP election campaign in Portugal Left-wing Party Positions

37 It is worth noting that the Lisbon Treaty has been presented as one of the main achievement of the Portuguese presidency in 2007.

2123 Right-wing Party Positions

Legend: Blue - CDS-PP; Green - PSD Source: EU Profiler: http://www.nccr-democracy.ch/euprofiler/

The last decade has seen a burgeoning body of literature on the Europeanization of political parties. This strand of research aims to answer questions about how integration in the EU affects parties’Figure organization 5 and behavior. One-way of knowing how ‘Europeanized’ a party system is consists in analyzing who crafts the European elections manifesto. conveys a comparative analysis of fifteen European party systems showing who holds the responsibility to shape the manifesto for European election: the MEPs, National MPs, a Delegation of the Leader or the Party Leader herself. Not surprisingly, overall results show that MEPs do not play a major role, with Portuguese MEPs striking a particularly lwo score of 2.6. On the other hand, leaders have a relatively strong influence, with a 3.6 score in the Portuguese case. On top of that, if we add together the influence of the leader and his or her delegation – usually the top decision body of the party apparatus – it becomes clear that internal actors withhold the greatest chunk of influence (6.9 in the Portuguese case).

24 22 Figure 5: Who is responsible for drafting the Euromanifestos?

Source: Poguntke, et al., The Europeanization of Political Parties Project. Results computed by the authors – we acknowledge the generous sharing of this data with us and express our sincere thanks to Prof. Thomas Poguntke and his co-authors.

Finally, let us consider the influence of national MPs who can have their voices be heard in this process, too. National MPs in Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Ireland play a particularly important role - comparatively - in the crafting of European elections manifesto. By accompanying the European policy line of the respective party from the inception, MPs have informational advantages over those MPs that pay little to no attention to what is going on in the European front. The role of national MPs in Portugal is comparatively non-negligible, with a score of 1.5.

After this excursus on the policy positions of Portuguese parties at the European level, followed by an analysis on who holds the ultimate power to define those positions, we now focus on the outcomes of EP elections in Portugal. In the 2009 elections, theFigure majority 2 of Portuguese seats in the EP have been disputed between the centre-left Socialist Party (PS) and the centre-right Social Democrat Party (PSD) (see ). It is worth mentioning that the latter had formed a coalition with the Christian-democratic party CDS-PP for the 2004 EP election, mirroring the agreement between the two parties at the national level and trying to minimize damages due to their roles in government. In 2009, this strategy was abandoned, and these two parties ran independently, taking advantage of the fact that their major competitor was in government in a particularly hard time for Portuguese finances.

The winner of the 2009 election was the PSD, with about 32 per cent of the votes (and almost 1,130,000 ballots) and eight MEPs electth ed, whereas the incumbent party, PS, was the most defeated party on June 7 , having lost at total of 5 seats within the European Parliament. For the smaller parties with parliamentary representation, the results were also quite satisfactory. CDU and CDS-PP got

2325 roughly 11 and 8 per cent of the vote share each. With these results they could maintain their previous representation of one seat each in the EP, despite the reduction of the overall number of seats assigned to Portugal. Note that in particular38 for BE the outcome of the elections represented an impressive win of votes .

Notwithstanding this, one important feature of the 2009 EP election in Portugal was turnout, reaching again a very low level with only 36,8%, seven percentage points below the European average. This represents the second lowest turnout in the history of European elections in Portugal (after the 35.5% turnout in 1994), but represents a very small decrease from the turnout observed in 2004.

A comparison between the current Parliament and the previous one shows that there is a difference in terms of relative strengths of both sides on the left-right divide – even if both parliaments displayFigure 6a majority of Portuguese MEPs ascribed to left-wing EP party groups, the relative proportion of right-wing MEPs increased substantially in 2009 ( ). Moreover, in the present legislature the political left is clearly more fractured than in the sixth Parliament, both due to the fewer seats obtained by the PS and to the presence of one independent MEP in the Greens-European Free Alliance (EFA) group.

We have seen which Portuguese parties have been able to elect MEPs and what has been their distribution within European party groups. But who are the Portuguese MEPs? Where do they come from? And how different or similar are they when compared to the remaining European representatives? The next section examines the sociological and political background of Portuguese MEPs since 1986 and presents some comparative data.

38 Data on election results is available at CNE’s website: www.cne.pt.

26 24 Figure 6: Affiliation of Portuguese MEPs to EP Party Groups in the current and previous legislature

:

4.2Source The Votewatch.eu. Portuguese Calculations MEPs’ background computed by the authors.

Political Experience

Experience is an important attribute of politicalFigure 7 elites. A previous governmental or parliamentary experience means an MEP has held an elected office at the national level before going to the EP. shows that almost 30% of all Portuguese MEPs have never had any parliamentary experience before they first joined the EP, a rather striking figure, since this lack of experience can be seen as a liability for their performance in the EP. In terms of governmental experience, less than half of all MEPs were members of the national government before being Figureelected 7: to Previous the EP. parliamentary and government experience of Portuguese MEPs (%)

Source: our dataset on the Portuguese MEPs (1986-2012).

To understand the Portuguese participation in the EP, it is crucial to look at turnover rates. This indicator gives us information about the number of MEPs who are new to the EP. Put simply, turnover tells us how many MEPs have changed following each election. A high degree of turnover, with a constant

2527 renewal of fresh MEPs, has a generally well-known advantage of preventing the creation of a EU-level cartelised political elite. This elite would control political and partisan resources at a level haunted by a ‘democratic deficit’ and where the disconnection between the elite and the citizenry is seen as being particularly acute. On the other hand, a high degree of turnover also has its disadvantages.Assembleia da RepúblicaLegislative roles have their specific procedures, rules, rituals, and so forth. The members of any legislature, be it the EP or the Portuguese , go through a political socialization process to learn their ‘institutional role’. This knowledge is crucial to enhance their political performance, in that learning how to take the best out of the complex and sophisticated EU political machinery39 guarantees political advantages. The literature on the EP (see for instance argues that it usually takes as long as one full term to ‘Europeanize’ an FigureMEP – in8 other words, to make sure that he/she knows his/her role in the EP.

shows the turnover rate for Portuguese MEPs between 1987 and the current parliamentary legislature. The first conclusion coming out of this figure is that the turnover rate increased over time. In the first two legislative sessions, when Portugal was a new member of the EP and held a Presidency of the European Union, turnover was below 50%. After 1994, there was a surge, with a significant increase to low-70%s. In the 2009 session there was a slight decrease in turnover from 71% to 68%. Put bluntly, this means that from all the 22 FigurePortuguese 8: Turnover MEPs that rate were (% of elected Portuguese in 2009, MEPs, 15 1987enter-2012)ed the EP for the first time.

100 90 80 71 72 71 68 70 60 50 50 46 40 30 20 10 0 1987 1989 1994 1999 2004 2009

Source: our dataset on the Portuguese MEPs (1986-2012).

The high levels of turnover in the Portuguese delegations are also visible through the analysis of the number of legislative sessions in which each Portuguese MEP participated.Table In fact, 2 the majority of the present and past MEPs were never re- elected, while around 25% of these representatives have been re-elected more than once ( ).

39 Corbett, R. et al. 2011. The European Parliament. London: John Harper Publishing

28 26 Table 2: Number of terms served by Portuguese MEPs (1986-2009) Terms N % Elected once 74 64.9 Elected twice 29 25.4 Elected thrice 9 7.9 Elected 4 times 1 0.9 Elected 5 times 1 0.9 Total 114 100.0

Source: Our dataset on the Portuguese MEPs (1986-2009) Figure 9 Let us now consider the level of Portuguese turnover from a comparative perspective. shows the turnover rate for eleven countries, including Portugal, in the 2009 elections. The figure shows, for each country, the percentage of MEPs that was elected for the first time in 2009. Portugal ranks amongst the countries with the highest turnover rate (68%). The EU-27 average is 50%, with some of the largest, and undoubtedly more powerful countries, scoring well below this average. Indeed, the UK, Germany, and Spain score below the European average, with 28%, 41%, and 44%, respectively. On the other end of the distribution, a little above Portugal stands Italy, Greece, and Lithuania, with 71%, 73%, and 75%, respectively.

The high degree of turnover of Portuguese MEPs presents some potential pitfalls for their performance in the EP, as a significant amount of the MEPs’ time and political effort needs to be put into learning their new role. Carlos Coelho, a Portuguese MEP belonging to the EPP told us in débutant’an interview that ‘despite having had a vast prior political experience in the national parliament, with a thorough experience in the legislative process, I felt like a . At the other end of the political spectrum, Ilda Figueiredo, a GUE-NGL MEP, claims that, ‘previous experience in the EP helps the MEP to have access to seats with more visibility’. These quotes show the importance of socialization for MEPs. According to Carlos Coelho, there are three key differences between a parliamentary experience at the national level and within the EP. First, at the national level (referring to the Portuguese situation), accessing information is rather difficult, whilst in the EP there is an overwhelming amount of information available, with the major problem being the capacity to process it. Second, the EP has a vast staff, with support from the parliamentary party group, the political group, and personal assistants, whereas in the Portuguese Assembleia da República this support is rather insignificant. Finally, the EP provides the possibility to intervene in global dossiers, such as EU-China negotiations, issues related to the United Nations, and so forth. Only a low turnover, with a relatively stable contingent over time, gives MEPs the possibility to learn how to deal with the new political reality, once they are elected to the EP. To conclude: turnover is first and foremost the product of party politics, to the extent that candidate selection and the reshuffling of electoral lists are party driven and not primarily a consequence of electoral change at the polls.

2729 Figure 9: Turnover rate in selected national groups (% of new MEPs in the 2009-2014 legislature)

100 90 75 80 71 73 67 68 70 62 62 58 60 50 50 41 44 40 28 30 20 10 0

K in 7 ia ly a nd v a ni U pa nce a It S EU2 ra ol Lat tugal F P Cyprus or ermany ge P Greece ithua G a L ver A

Source: Adapted from Corbett (2011, Chapter 4, pp.51-52).

Socio-demographic and professional background of Portuguese MEPs

In this section we present data on the socio-demographic and professional background of Portuguese MEPs since 1986 using an original dataset on Portuguese MEPs. We are primarily interested in their profiles regarding their age, gender and occupational background. These profiles are important because they provide us with a clearer picture regarding gender equality, the professionalization of politics, and the potential links between interest groups and the state.

Our data shows that the average age of Portuguese MEPs has been relatively stable over time. The first cohort to make it into the EP was the youngest thus far (about 45 years, on average), because Portugal was a recently established democracy with a younger political elite. Since 1989, there has not been significant variation in this regard, with the typical MEP being 48 to 49 years old. In 2009, the average Portuguese MEP was 49 years old. This places the Portuguese national delegation bellow the European Parliament’s average (51 years), and therefore closer toFigure the youngest 10 delegations (Bulgaria, Romania and the Netherlands) than to Luxembourg, Cyprus or Latvia, where the average age in 2009 was 56-57 years) ( ). When compared to Spain and Greece, other third-wave democracies that accessed the EEC in the 1980s, Portugal has a considerably younger national delegation (on average, four years younger). This suggests the majority of Portuguese MEPs is not heading towards the end of their career and that the EP is not the final destination for politicians approaching retirement age, as it is sometimes suggested. Consequently, we should expect our MEPs to be interested and even involved in national politics. This is consistent with what MEPs expressed during our interviews. A good part of Portuguese MEPs in their 40s expressed concern over the lack of attention given to them by the media and national institutions and they admitted contributing to domestic

30 28 newspapers and TV shows as a means of acquiring visibility in their home Figurecountry 10. which Average they age would of MEPs otherwise in the not2009-2014 receive. Par liament by country

Source:

Hoyland, Sirclar and Hix (2011). Automated database on the EP. Available at http://folk.uio.no/bjornkho/MEP/default.htm. Calculations made by theFigure authors. 11

A second relevant sociological dimension is gender. depicts the proportion of female MEPs and establishes a comparison between the Portuguese contingent and the EP overall average. The figure reveals that Portugal has had a significant ‘gender gap’ when it first joined the EP. By gender gap we mean that women have been underrepresented in the Portuguese contingent in comparison to the overall representation of women in the EP. This gap disappears only in 2009, with a clear convergence between Portuguese and European levels of female representation. Due to the approval of the ‘Parity Law’ (2006), which requires a 33% threshold for women in electoral lists for both national and European elections, in the last European election Portugal reached a level of female representation slightly higher than the European average. Note, however, that Portugal is still far away – over 10 percentage points, as is the overall European average – from an equal representation between women and men in the EP.

31 29 Figure 11: Proportion of female MEPs (%)

Source:Note: From 1984 to 1986, there were no Portuguese representatives in the EP and the first delegation of MEPs from Portugal (1986-1987) was not elected directly and included no women. http://www.europarl.lv/ressource/static/files/sievietes-ep-en.pdf - our dataset on the Portuguese MEPs (1986-2012). Table 3 Finally, we are interested in knowing the professional experience of the Portuguese delegation to the EP. shows that the most frequent occupational background of Portuguese MEPs is the legal sphere: in fact, about a fifth of the seats granted to the Portuguese delegation since 1987 belonged to lawyers or jurists. Professors, full-time politicians and economists were also strongly represented in the Portuguese delegation to the EP. Table 3 There are some differences between the MEPs and the members of the national Parliament in terms of occupational background ( ). For instance, the representation of professions related to engineering/architecture, law or journalism is quite similar in both groups, but the EP national delegations have been composed of a higher number of professors, economists and full-time politicians compared to their national counterparts. Business managers are less represented at the European level than in the national Parliament, while clerks and manual/agricultural workers have never gained seats in the Portuguese EP Tabledelegations. 3

thus seems to suggest that the Portuguese political class is significantly elite-biased. Hanna Pitkin coined the concept of ‘descriptive representation’ to define a political relationship between the elite and the population in which the former would have similar socioeconomic structure to that of the latter. For example, if the constituency has 5% of non-white voters, the elite should also compromise 5% of non-whites. For the Portuguese case the comparison between the occupational background of the population and that of the political elite is striking: Portuguese political elites do not offer a descriptive representation of the population.

30 32 Table 3: The occupational background of Portuguese MEPs in comparative perspective (%)

National European Employed Legislators, senior officials and Parliament Parliament Population managers: 1975-2009 1987-now in 2010

Administrative Official/Public Sector 3,3 4,8 Manager TotalFull time Politician/Political 'leader' 16,71,8 15,524,4 6,6 Business Managers 11,7 4,2 Professionals/Technicians and Associated Professionals:

Engineers/Architects 7,3 7,1 Medical Doctors 3,5 1,8 Professors 10,2 19,0 Teachers 9,7 3,6 Economists 4,8 12,5 TotalLegal Profession 21,558,8 22,067,9 18,9 Authors/Journalists 1,8 1,8 Clerks 5,9 0 9,5 Manual/Agriculture/Elementary 4,7 0 48,6 Occupation Others 13,9 7,7 16,4

Representação Política em Portugal: Inquéritos e Bases de Dados Sources: Our dataset on the Portuguese MEPs (1986-2012). National MPs: Freire, Seiceira & Viegas (2010), , Lisbon: Sextante. Population: Statistical Yearbook of Portugal 2010 (www.ine.pt).

The social and educational differences between the parliamentary elite and the population are best illustrated by the numbers produced by the Portuguese Institute of National Statistics that indicate that in Portugal the number of ‘craft and related trades workers’, ‘service workers,Table and 3 shop and market sales workers’, and ‘elementary occupations’ is still high, specially taking into account what seem to be low levels of industrialization ( ). Despite the importance of such occupational categories in the Portuguese society, political representation is not descriptive but rather substantive, to the extent that parliamentary elites are selected from a well-off background. Put simply, although keeping loose ties with their constituencies in terms of socioeconomic background Portuguese MEPs base their political legitimacy on their record and on their policy stances. According to some advocates of descriptive representation these differences between the population and the parliamentary elite can lead to a poorer quality of representation and to a feeling of disenchantment by the population.

33 31 4.3 The Portuguese MEPs in the EP Structures

Representation in the EP: proportionality issues

When Portugal joined the ECC in 1986, there were only 12 Member States, but three subsequent enlargementsTable 4; raised Figure the 12; size Figure of 13 the European Union to 27 Member States. As a result, since 1986, the proportion of Portuguese MEPs has Tabledropped 4: Proportion from 4.6 to of 2.9% Portuguese ( MEPs since 1986 ). Year N Portugal N Total Portuguese MEPs (%)

1986 Third enlargement 24 518 4.6 1994 (demographic change) 25 567 4.4 1995 Fourth enlargement 25 625 4.0 2004 Treaty of Nice 24 732 3.3 2009 Lisbon Treaty 22 736 3.0 2011 amending protocol (IGC) 22 754 2.9

The same happened to similar-sized countries, such as Belgium, Hungary, the Czech Republic, or Greece. The enlargement of the European Union therefore had a rather power-limiting effect for smaller Member States when we limit our focus on the plenary. It is not excluded that future rounds of enlargement (Croatia, Western Balkans, Turkey…) would have a similar effect on the relative weight of smaller countries’ delegations. Note, however, that enlargement tends to have even more profound “downsizing” effects on larger Member States’ proportional representation. It seems that when power has to be shared with more members of a club, the largest membersvis-à-vis tend to lose proportionally more than the smaller. This is not unusual and follows a somewhat “federalistic” Figureavenue 12: of over-representationEnlargements, Treaty of change the smaller and Portugue se the representation larger entities. in the EP

Note: The Y axis on the left-hand side of the graph displays the number of EP seats (blue line), whereas the Y axis on the right-hand side gives information about the proportion of seats attributed to Portugal (red line)

34 32

Figure 13

displays a cross-national comparison of proportional representation of MEPs, taking into consideration the size of their respective population. This graph clearly depicts that small countries, like Ireland or Denmark, were the greatest losers of the last enlargements, having seen their representations proportionally halving. Portugal lost around 36% of its relative strength. On the other end of the distribution, Malta, Slovenia, and Cyprus, new, small countries Figurewere among 13: Proportional the greatest winners winners and of losersthe distribution in terms of ofrepresentation power in the EP.

Figure 14 The relationship between size and proportional losses, respectively gains over time becomes also visible in , showing a clear pattern: the largerFigure a 14country, the higher its proportional losses in seats over time. However, Portugal is part of those smaller countries below the regression line contained in , meaning that its losses were particularly strong, given its size.

33 35 Figure 14: Size and proportional winners and losers

Representation in the EP: Party Groups

Let us now turn to the partisan composition of the Portuguese delegations to the EP. The two major parties in the Portuguese political system are PSD and PS. While PS has rather easily found its natural Euro party family (PES), PSD initially decided to join the Liberals (LDR, currently ALDE) before it moved on to become part of the conservative group (EPP). From its start, the EPP was a Christian Democratic group and for that reason it was CDS’s natural choice. In 1994 CDS was forced to leave the EPP after40 a change in leadership, switching to ALDE, but it returned to EPP in 2004 . As for PSD, being part of EPP represented an inflexion towards the conservative right. While some consider this to have been a poor decision – because PSD could gain more from integrating a Party Group that is needed to form majorities in the EP, such as ALDE – others believe that this was a smart move – specially when PSD is in opposition, its leaders may still take part in meetings withTable prominent 5). members of conservative governments in Europe. PCP has always been part of the group of Communists/Far Left and since 2004 it was joined by BE (

40 http://ppq.sagepub.com/content/8/4/463.abstract

36 34 Table 5: Distribution of Portuguese MEPs by Party Groups (1986-2009) 1986-87 1987-89 1989-04 1994-99 1999-04 2004-09 2009-14

EPP 2 4 3 3 9 9 10 S&D 6 6 8 10 12 12 7 EUL/NGL 3 3 3 3 2 3 5 LDR 9 10 9 9 0 0 0 ALDE UENTOTAL 244 24 1 24 0 25 0 25 2 24 0 22 0

Note: Numbers correspond to the political groups that MEPs chose to integrate immediately after the election. EPP – Conservatives/Christian Democrats; S&D -Social Democrats; EUL/NGL - Communists/Far-Left; ALDE - Liberal/Centrist; UEN - National Conservatives. Source: our dataset on the Portuguese MEPs (1986-2012). For a matter of simplification we use the current denomination of Party Groups, and we assume there is a line of continuity between the previous Groups and the current ones

Since 2004 Portugal’s seats inFigure the EP 15) have been shared among five national parties but Portuguese MEPs are currently represented in three Political Groups only: EPP, S&D and EUL/NGL ( . The exception is one MEP who in 2011 decided to change his non-affiliation and joined the Greens/EFA, after having previouslyFigure 15: Distribution been an independent by party groups Member (graphical of Parliament representation. of Table 5)

As we have discussed before, apart from being a committee member, MEPs can also assume other roles – elected offices – at the EP,Table the 6most important being President of the EP, Vice-President of the EP, Quaestor, Chair and Vice-Chair of the Party Group, Chair or Vice-Chair of a committee. below presents a list of Portuguese MEPs who have represented these roles since 1986.

3537 Table 6: Portuguese MEPs in EP elected offices (1986-2012)

Roles 1984-89 1989-94 1994-99 1999-2004 2004-09 2009- Manuel Luis Porto Marinho (LDR) (PSE) João Soares Quaestor (PSE) João Apolinário (PSE) Sérgio Ribeiro (GUE/NGL) Francisco José João António António Lucas Pacheco Cravinho Capucho Costa Pires Pereira (PSE) (ELDR) (PSE) EP Vice- (PPE) (PPE-DE) President Manuel Rui António Francisco dos Amaral Capucho Lucas Pires Santos (LDR) (LDR) (PPE) (PSE) Luís Marinho (PSE) Rodolfo Rui António Joaquim Vital Crespo Amaral Vitorino Miranda Moreira Committee (EMPL) (TRAN) (LIBE) (DEVE) (INTA) Chair Jorge Campinos (EMPL) Fernando Gomes (EMPL) Maria Paulo Santos EP Party Rangel ((Greenes- Group (PPE) Vice- V) Vice- Chair or President Vice-Chair President Ilda Joaquim Figueiredo Miranda (GUE/NGL) (CG) Vice- President Os Deputados Portugueses ao PE President Source: Gabinete em Portugal do PE (2010), , Lisboa, PE, Gabinete em Portugal.

38 36 The Portuguese MEPs in EP Committees

Figure 16

Let us now take a longitudinal perspective on this issue. shows the distribution of Portuguese MEPs across the 20 committees and over time. These numbers represent the distribution of members (effective and substitute) since 1986 until the current legislative session. It is important to bear in mind that while average committee size has increased by around 25% since 1979, the number of Portuguese MEPs, as we have seen before, has decreased since 1986.

In the 1986-2011 period, Agriculture and Fisheries are amongst the most relevant committees for Portuguese MEPs. These two areas were dealt with by a single committee until 1994, when the creation of two different committees (PECH for Fisheries and AGRI for Agriculture) took place. Both before and after 1994, Portugal has always had a considerable proportion of members working on Agriculture and/or Fisheries: in 1994-99, almost half of Portuguese MEPs were effective or substitute members of PECH or AGRI, but, since then, the Portuguese presence in these committees was slightly reduced.

The committees on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), Regional Development (REGI), Budgets (BUDG) and Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) are, in the full period under analysis, amongst the most desirable committees for Portuguese MEPs. With some exceptions, in each Parliament there were always four of five national MEPs in these committees. In the first years, those Portuguese MEPs who integrate the BUGD committee were quite prominent personalities both in the Portuguese landscape and in the European Parliament: Rui Amaral (LDR), Francisco Lucas Pires (PPE), and Miranda da Silva (GUE/NGL). Nowadays, while the Portuguese interest in Budgets or Economic and Monetary Issues seems to have increased in 2009-2011 vis-à-vis the previous legislatures, the national presence in EMPL and REGI has been reduced.

39 37 Figure 16: Distribution of Portuguese MEPs in EP committees since 1986 in a longitudinal perspective

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

AGRI and PECH 5 6 4 12 7 8 6 REGI 6 7 5 5 5 4 2 BUDG 5 5 4 6 5 2 4 EMPL 5 4 5 5 5 3 3 ECON 5 6 5 3 3 3 5 DEVE 5 3 5 5 4 3 1 ENVI 3 4 6 4 2 3 3 LIBE 5 5 5 4 4 AFET 4 5 5 5 3 ITRE 1 2 6 3 3 2 4 TRANS 4 2 5 2 2 4 2 CULT 4 1 3 3 3 3 2 FEMM 2 1 3 3 3 3 3 PETI 5 4 4 2 2 INTA 4 2 2 4 3 2 JURI 3 1 4 1 4 1 CONT 6 1 3 3 AFCO 4 2 2 IMCO 1 2

1986-1987 1987-1989 1989-1994 1994-1999 1999-2004 2004-2009 2009-2014

Note: Until 1997 all issues regarding Agriculture and Fisheries were dealt with by one single committee; since then they have been separated into two different committees AGRI and PECH. INTA (International Trade) was created in 2004, after the unsuccessful merge of EER (External Economic41 Relations) and Energy into the ITRE commission during the 1999-2004 parliamentary term. AFET (Foreign Affairs) was only created in 1992 (Maastricht Treaty).

There have always been at least three Portuguese MEPs in the AFET (Foreign Affairs) and LIBE (Civil Liberties) committees since their creation in 1992. In the case of AFET, the MEPs are prominent personalities of national politics: João Cravinho, António Capucho, Eurico de Melo, Pacheco Pereira, Mário Soares, João de Deus Pinheiro, and Miguel Portas.

Interestingly, the committee INTA (International Trade) and its predecessor EER (External Economic Relations) never had a strong presence of Portuguese MEPs. However, the current chair is a Portuguese representative, Vital Moreira (S&D), something rather rare among medium sized countries – in the present The european parliament's committees: National party influence and 41legislative empowerment Whitaker, R. (2011). . London: Routledge.

40 38 legislature the only medium sized countries with a committee chair are Sweden (FEMM – Women’s Rights and Gender Equality) and Portugal.

From a longitudinal perspective, it seems that the distribution of the Portuguese MEPS in the different committees was quite even during the first term they served in the EP. In fact, between 1986 and 1987, most committees had 5 Portuguese MEPs (either as effective or substitute members). However, in the following years, the Portuguese representation clearly starts to privilege some committees more than others: Agriculture, Fisheries, Economy and Monetary Affairs, Regional Development, Employment and Budgets are amongst those committees where Portugal has a stronger presence.

It is also important to mention that, since 2009, the Portuguese representatives took part in the two special committees that were formed during this seventh Parliament: four of them participated in the “Financial, Social and Economic Crisis” committee, and five were members of the “Policy Challenges” committee). This latter commission was co-chaired by a Portuguese MEP from the BE. Portuguese MEPs’ roles and performance in the Committes

Between 2004 and 2009, Portugal had no chairs of the permanent committees, but five vice-chairs in areas such as Security and Defence, Employment and Social Affairs, Fisheries, Transports and Tourism, and Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. In the current Parliament, Vital Moreira (PS) chairs the committee on International Trade, but the only vice-chairs42 that are still held by Portuguese MEPs are Employment and Social AffairsTable and 7Women’s Rights and Gender Equality. More importantly, a total of seven Portuguese MEPs serve as committee coordinators in the current legislature ( ). This is important because committee coordinators play an important role, in particular in the allocation of reports. In a 2006 survey, “when asked to choose their first preference from among the EP posts of Group President, EP President, National Delegation leader of Committee chair, more responde43 nts opted for a committee chair rather than any of the alternatives” . Even if being a committee coordinator does not have a direct impact on the country’s ability to extract benefits, it does place Portuguese MEPs among the best positioned in the EP, especially among similar-sized countries.

42 European Union This position was occupied by Ilda Figueiredo (CDU), who left the parliament earlier this year. Politics43 G. McElroy (2006), “Committee Representation in the European Parliament”, , 7(1), pp. 5-29, p.9.

3941 Table 7: Roles of the Portuguese MEPs in the EP Committees (2009-)

PG Vice- Committee Committee President Chairs Vice-Chairs Committee Coordinators Capoulas Santos (AGRI) S&D Vital Moreira Edite Estrela Elisa Ferreira (ECON) (PS) - (INTA) (FEMM) Ana Gomes (AFET)

PPE Paulo (PSD, CDS) Rangel - - - João Ferreira (PECH) GUE-NGL Ilda Inês Zuber Miguel Portas (BUDG) (PCP; BE) Figueiredo - (EMPL) Marisa Matias (ITRE) Greens- EFA - - - Rui Tavares (DROI) rapporteur Particular attention needs to be paid to the allocation of legislative reports among MEPs. Becoming a is a sign of respect and confidence by the party group (this is especially true for smaller groups, which do not have many chances of obtaining co-decision reports) and places the MEP at the center of the decision-making process. The allocation of rapporteurs is in principle dependent upon the size of the Party Group – although other variables intervene in the process - and the amount of credits the PG is willing to ‘spend’ on a given position of rapporteur. Between 1996 and 1998, the distribution of co-decision reports was highest among the Dutch, German, Danish, Finnish, and British MEPs, while44 Portugal along with Ireland and Sweden failed to supply a single rapporteur . In the first half of the following legislature, the Portuguese delegation was only able to obtain five rapporteurs. This figure is especially low when compared to similar sized or smaller countries such as Greece, TableSweden 8 or Finland. Between 1999 and 2001, Luxembourg was the country with the best ration between number of MEPs and ordinary legislative procedures ( ).

ThisTable situation 8; Figure changed 1 dramatically in the current legislature: until November 2012 Portuguese MEPs had served as rapporteurs in 31 co-decision reports ( 7). The Portuguese MEP Vital Moreira, chair of the INTA committee (International Trade) signed 16 reports, while the number of ordinary45 legislative procedures assigned to the other committee chairs is much lower . However, the success of the Portuguese delegation is not only due to Vital Moreira’s performance in the INTA committee: the remaining 21 Portuguese MEPs have been rapporteurs in a total of 15 reports, while similar sized countries (such as Sweden, Greece or Belgium) have not signed more than 9 co-decision reports. Despite its size, Portugal is the third EU member-State

44 G. Benedetto, Rapporteurs as legislative entrepreneurs: the dynamics of the co-decision procedure in the European Parliament, JEPP, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2005 45 More than half of committee chairs had not signed a single co-decision report until November 2012. The remaining committee chairs were in charge of a maximum of eight reports in the same period. Source: European Parliament website (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search.html)

42 40 with the highest number of reports (after Germany and the UK) as well as the country that presents the best ratio of reports by MEP (Table 8; Figure 18). These patterns attenuate theTable strong 8 relationship between delegation size and allocation of ordinary legislative procedures in the EP, which is considerably strongerTable 8: Co-decision than in 1999-2001 reports by ( Member). State (1999-2001 vs. 2009-2012)

1999-2001 2009-2012 MEPs Reports Ratio MEPs Reports Ratio Portugal 0.2 1.4 UK 0.4 0.6 25 5 22 31 Germany 0.5 0.5 87 37 73 45 Luxembourg 1 0.5 99 48 99 48 Sweden 0.4 0.5 6 6 6 3 Austria 0.4 0.4 22 9 20 9 Finland 0.9 0.4 21 8 19 8 Italy 0.2 0.4 16 14 13 5 Ireland 0.2 0.4 87 15 73 29 Spain 0.5 0.4 15 3 12 5 Bulgaria - 0.4 64 29 54 20 Czech Republic - 0.4 - - 17 7 Hungary - 0.4 - - 22 8 Poland - 0.4 - - 22 8 Belgium 0.5 0.3 - - 51 19 France 0.1 0.3 25 13 22 7 Netherlands 0.6 0.3 87 10 74 23 Cyprus - 0.3 31 19 26 7 Malta - 0.3 - - 6 2 Slovenia - 0.3 - - 6 2 Denmark 0.2 0.2 - - 8 2 Greece 0.6 0.2 16 3 13 3 Romania - 0.2 25 14 22 4 Slovakia - 0.2 - - 33 7 Latvia - 0.1 - - 13 3 Estonia - 0 - - 9 1 Lithuania - 0 - - 6 0 Correlation MEPs/Reports - - 12 0 0.74 0.89 Source: Benedetto, 2005; European Parliament website (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search.html)

It is also true that some reports are more important than others. It is often the case that no Party Group is willing to ‘waste points’ on a less important report. Consequently, the committee chair either decides who is responsible for the report (for free) or he/she writes it him/herself. In addition, some committees

4143 produce a higher number of reports than others simply due to the policy areas they cover. All these aspects must be taken into account when analyzing the allocation of reports. This being said, it is significant that in the current legislature, Portuguese MEPs have been rapporteurs in some relevant dossiers, like the one on the adoption of the Regulation providing measures on the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances – one of the measures of the so-called “Six-Pack”. Only three relevant reports on financial supervision, financial markets 46 and economic policies were allocated to MEPs from similar sized countries . In all cases, MEPs were from one of the three biggest Party Groups in the EP. Among the same group of countries, only twoAppendix relevant 1 reports have been allocated to minor PG: one on Falsified Medicines (Portugal) and Figureanother 17: on Co-decision novel food reports(Netherlands), by Member both State to GUE/NG (2009-2012)L MEPs ( ).

Lithuania 0 Estonia 0 Latvia 1 Slovenia 2 Malta 2 Cyprus 2 Slovakia 3 Denmark 3 Luxembourg 3 Greece 4 Ireland 5 Finland 5 Romania 7 Netherlands 7 Belgium 7 Bulgaria 7 Hungary 8 Czech Republic 8 Austria 8 Sweden 9 Poland 19 Spain 20 France 23 Italy 29 Portugal 31 UK 45 Germany 48

0 10 20 30 40 50

46 Austria (19 MEPs), Belgium (22 MEPs), Bulgaria (17 MEPs), Czech Republic (22 MEPs), Greece (22 MEPs), Hungary (22 MEPs), Netherlands (26 MEPs), and Sweden (20 MEPs).

44 42 4.4 What do Portuguese MEPs do in the plenary?

Let us now focus on the degree of cohesiveness of the Portuguese MEPs in what concerns their voting behaviour. VoteWatch.eu offers a measure of cohesion based on roll-call vote data both for the legislatures 2004-2009 and 2009-2014. These cohesion scores vary between 0 and 1, and indicate how coherent the national delegations are in voting. This means that the higher the score, the more often the national delegation voted as a block, independently of their European FigurePolitical 18 Group affiliations.

shows that the degree of cohesion of the Portuguese MEPs is substantially lower in the current legislature (.68) than in the previous one (2004-2009: .74). In fact, Portugal’s degree of cohesion, which used to be slightly above the EU27 average, is now below average. Moreover, there were no significant changes in the EU member-states taken as a whole, or in specific groups such47 as the 15 older member-States, the 12 CEE countries or the PIIGS/GIPSI countries. This suggests that the reasons for the loss of cohesiveness in the Portuguese delegation may be internal to this group. There are, however, countries where cohesion has decreased even more between these two legislatures: Lithuania (.11 points less), Latvia (.09 points less) and Austria Figure(.07 points 18: Degree less). of Cohesiveness in Roll Call Votes in the European Parliament

Source: Votewatch.eu. Calculations computed by the authors.

Cohesiveness seems not to be strongly related to the size of national delegations. In the previous legislature, there was a weak negative relationship between size and cohesion in vote (Pearson’s r= -.40; p < .10), in the sense that smaller national groups would present higher degrees of cohesion. However, this pattern is inexistent in the current EP (Pearson’s r= -.17; p > .10). Since there is no relationship between the variation in number of seats for each Member State and

47 This group is composed by Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, the EU countries that have been more affected by the international crisis that started in 2009.

4345 48 cohesion in the vote (Pearson’s r = -.0.06; p > .10), it is safe to assume that size is not a reliable predictor of agreement within national delegations in what concerns their voting behaviour.

Comparing the degree of internal agreement49 of the Portuguese delegation in the EP with other delegations of the same size , no clear trend can be discerned in the behaviour of national MEP groups of this magnitude (i.e., with circa 20 seats). In fact, while cohesivenessFigure has 19 decreased in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Hungary, it stayed constant in Greece and increased in FigureSweden 19: and Degree Belgium of Cohesiveness ( ). in EP Roll Call Votes in selected National Groups

Source: Votewatch.eu. Calculations computed by the authors. Figure 20 The degree of cohesiveness in the Portuguese MEPs voting behaviour seems to vary accordingly to the specific policy areas at stake. presents the degree of cohesion in voting for a selected sample of policy areas – those in which Portugal’s interests are believed to be stronger – for the Portuguese delegation and the 27 national groups in the EP as a whole. In the legislature 2004-2009, Portuguese MEPs’ cohesion is quite above average on issues such as Fisheries and Budgetary Control, whereas vote agreement in Transports and Tourism or Agriculture is of .74, i.e., right on the national average. Voting records for economic and monetary policies show a panorama of lower cohesiveness amongst Portuguese MEPs, when compared with other policy areas and the general patterns of voting behaviour. In the current legislature, cohesiveness in terms of fisheries, budget issues, agriculture and economic/monetary policies

48 The number of seats in the EP was decreased in the current parliament. As a result, most countries lost seats in the Parliament, but others (i.e, Germany or Bulgaria) kept their previous number of seats, and still others (such as Spain or Sweden) now have aFigure slightly 11 larger delegation 49in the EP. In 2004-2009, Portugal had 24 seats at the EP; the otherFigure countries 11 in had between 18 (Austria) and 27 (The Netherlands) seats. In the current legislature, Portugal has only 22 MEPs, whereas the size of the other delegations included in varies between 19 (Austria) and 26 (The Netherlands).

46 44 has decreased considerably amongst the Portuguese delegation in the EP, but consensus in what concerns regional development and transports/tourism has been higher in the present legislature than between 2004 and 2009.

To a certain degree, this panorama follows the pattern observed in the Parliament in general, which now presents less national consensus about budgetary control and stronger intra-delegation cohesiveness in the vote for policies related with transports, tourism and regional development. However, the decreased consensus of the Portuguese MEPs in their vote on economic/monetary and agriculture-related issues does not seem to follow a Figuregeneral 20: trend Degree in the of Parliament.Cohesiveness in Roll Call Votes in the European Parliament by Policy Area

Source: Votewatch.eu. Calculations computed by the authors.

Voting behaviour of the Portuguese MEPs, as of members of the European Parliament in general, is believed to be bound by three important factors: loyalties towards the EP Party Group they belong to, to their own national party and to the country delegation. Votewatch.eu offers direct measures of how MEPs’ voting behaviourTable 9 represents loyalty to these different entities, which is a preliminary way of answering the question about the motivations behind the vote. In we see that, on average, MEPs voted most frequently in a way that was in line with their national party and, to a lesser degree, in line with their

4547 respective EP Party Groups. This holds true for the general pool of votes, but also for each specific policy area we are considering in this report. Votes that were in line with the Portuguese group of MEPs happen, on average, less frequently, and appear to have been more common in the previous legislature than in the Tablecurrent 9: one.Loyalty of the Portuguese MEPs to Three Groups of Reference in the EP (proportion of votes in all policy areas) Loyalty EP Party Loyalty National Loyalty Country Group Party Group Group Mean S.D Mean S.D. Mean S.D.

2009-2014

0.93 0.05 0.98 0.02 0.78 0.14 2004-2009

0.95 0.03 0.96 0.02 0.82 0.15

Source: Votewatch.eu. Calculations computed by the authors.

The previous table shows that the dispersion from the central tendency measures is much higher in the case of voting loyally to the national group – that is to say, the variation in this kind of behaviour is larger than in the two other types of loyalty here considered.Figure In addition, 21 this is true both for the sixth and the current legislature. Let us then explore with further detail the loyalty towards the national party. As clearly demonstrates, the percentages of votes in line with the national group vary considerably between national party groups, both in this and in the previous parliament. On average, MEPs from left- wing parties without experience of government in the national realm (BE – Left Block; PCP – Portuguese Communist Party) voted less frequently in line with the national party than the other three parties represented in the EP. This suggests that ideology and party strategies play a stronger role in MEPs vote decisions than the abstract concept of “national interest”, and that this phenomenon is Figuremore frequent 21: Loyalty for ofrepresentatives the Portuguese of MEPs small to left-win the Nationalg parties. Group by National Party (% of votes)

100 95.2 87 90 84.8 85.3 73.7 80 70.7 70 61.7 57 59.6 60 51.4 50 40 30 20 10 0 CDU BE CDS-PP PSD PS

2004-2009 2009-2014

Source: Votewatch.eu. Calculations computed by the authors.

48 46

In terms of trends, MEPs from the Socialist and the Communist parties in the current parliament vote less in line with the Portuguese group than their counterparts in the previous legislature. Interestingly enough, representatives from the right-wing parties CDS-PP and PSD now vote much more loyally to the national delegation than in the sixth EP, whereas there is no significant shift in BE representatives’4.5How do Portuguese patterns MEPs of vote perceive within the their nat ionalwork group. in the EP?

In order to better grasp how Portuguese MEPs perceive their work in the EP, we interviewed fourteen of the twenty-two Portuguese MEPs elected in July 2009. Among those, only five were not new in the EP. Our interviews took place between February and April 2012 at the Jean Monnet Centre in Lisbon – where the European Parliament office in Portugal is located – and in Brussels, at the European Parliament. Our interviewees were asked to reflect upon the advantages and disadvantages of their professional and political background, the nature of the interests they represent, the work in the committees, their policy preferences, and the links between Lisbon and Brussels.

Current Portuguese MEPs have different opinions about the importance of prior political experience. Some MEPs see prior political experience as an added value because it makes adaptation to the EP easier and it can benefit them during the choice for coordinators, chairs or vice-chairs inside their Political Groups. Others tend to value technical knowledge due to the extreme complexity of the reports that are discussed, drafted and voted at the EP. In general, MEPs admit that doing politics at the Europeandébutant level is extremely different from the national, let alone the local level.sine Asqua one non MEP told us, ‘despite having a vast prior political experience, I felt like a ’. All MEPs emphasize negotiation and consensus ability as the condition for a successful mandate.

Although more than a half of the current Portuguese MEPs is distributed between the two larger political groups, the proportional distribution of our national delegation does not place Portuguese MEPs amongst the first to choose which committees they will integrate. From our interviews we concluded that about half of the current Portuguese MEPs were not placed in the committees of their personal preference. In those cases, they seem to have been placed in committees that represent their second choice and where Portuguese MEPs had been less represented in the past. Ana Gomes, a Socialist MEP that has been re- elected to the EP, emphasizes the importance of experience, ‘I joined the committee I wanted […] as a result of my capacity in those policy areas, considering that I was one of most intervening MEPs in that area in previous EP sessions’. Diogo Feio, a MEP with the EPP, first elected in 2009, corroborates the importance of experience, ‘Both me and Nuno Melo [another CDS MEP] were in our first EP term, hence it was difficult to have a network of contacts to facilitate our appointment to certain committees’. The only Portuguese committee chair, Vital Moreira, a Socialist chairing the INTA committee, claims that it is the size of the party group that matters the most, ‘Chairs are distributed proportionality

4749 following the size of each party group […] larger groups have greater possibilities to choose the most interesting committees’.

The previous paragraph shows the importance of informal politics in the daily business of the EP. Interestingly, two of the most experienced MEPs made a strong claim for the importance of knowing how to deal and taking the most out of backstage politics. Ana Gomes states that, ‘The EP is a constant bargain and not always through formal channels’. Carlos Coelho, a EPP MEP who has been re- elected three times in a row, says that ‘Backstage talk is as important as formal meetings, sometimes even more important. In formal conversations, people tend to act as actors; in backstage talk people are often more sincere’. The importance of informal channels is thus crucial for political success in the EP.

The next question then is what are the advantages for Portugal for having a certain number of MEPs in prominent positions or having a contingent that dominates backstage politics in the EP. Do Portuguese delegations, allocated to different European party groups, articulate their policy positions to defend national interest? The interviews with MEPs reveal that they have created informal contact networks among national delegations in which they discuss issues of national interest in the hope of reaching a common position. The question of national interest versus group discipline is one of the most frequently explored in the literature and by the media. In general, this dichotomy is more pertinent in the case of the political groups that have internal discipline such as S&D or EPP, contrary to what happens for instance inside GUE-NGL. Current Portuguese MEPs in S&D and EPP admit that in general they tend to vote with the group because the group represents their ideology and their party’s political positioning. Nevertheless, for example Carlos Coelho says that, ‘in a large number of policy areas it is very common to see common positions from the left to the right, from CDS-PP to PCP. This means that there is a lower degree of partisan politics in the EP’. Edite Estrela, from the Socialist group, describes the voting process in the EP as having ‘more leeway than in the national parliament, because we have to reconcile party group positions with our national interests […] national interests are extremely important and whenever there is a voting conflict we tend to follow the latter’.

In general, Portuguese MEPs consider that it tends to be easier to agree on issues related to agriculture and fisheries than on issues linked with the general economy and employment. Paulo Rangel, MEP belonging to the EPP, summarizes this question saying that ‘there are vital questions for Portuguese interest, for example the milk sector, in which the 22 MEPs vote cohesively’.

In our interviews, we have also asked MEPs to share some thoughts about the triangular relationship linking Lisbon, the Portuguese Permanent Representation to the EU (PERMREP), and themselves. The aim of this exercise is to understand the extent to which MEPs think of themselves as being supported by the PERMREP and, on top of that, if there is a coherent strategy delineated in Lisbon that is duly transmitted to them via the PERMREP. On this topic, MEPs gave contradictory answers. Some like Ana Gomes bluntly put that ‘there is no European policy. There has never been. The articulation [between Lisbon and

50 48 the MEPs] is still insufficient.’ Although recognizing the significant improvement in the last few years, with an ever-closer connection between Lisbon, the MEPs, and the PERMREP, Carlos Coelho says that ‘The information [about strategic interests] arrives slowly to MEPs, mostly due to Portuguese bureaucracy constraints’. A Socialist MEP, Elisa Ferreira has an opposite view. In her opinion ‘PERMREP works extremely well, it has very competent staff’. Marisa Matias also states the quality of the articulation process, stating however that it depends ‘on the committees, the staff, and the MEPs. I can only say that it works very well’.

Most of the current Portuguese MEPs see themselves as representing Portuguese citizens and Portuguese interests above all. Only one of our interviewees sees herself as a representative of all European citizens. Data on the Europeanization of political parties show that Portugal is the fourth country with a lower degree of ex-post accountability, among EU-15 countries. In other words, MEPs can have higher or lower levels of political discretion (i.e. the extent to which they are subject to a control of their activities). In the Portuguese case, MEPs have a significant political leeway, to the extent that neither their party, nor the Portuguese parliament for that matter, has thorough and effective mechanisms Figureto keep 22: tabs Ex-Post on their Accountability work in the of MEPs EP. activities

Source: Poguntke, et al. The Europeanization of Political Parties Project. Computed by the authors. Figure 22

The trend suggested by the data in has been confirmed by MEPs during the interviews. Indeed, there seems to be an interest from civil society over European affairs, with recurrent invitations to give talks all over the country. MEPs are also invited to discuss specific issues at the European Affairs committee in the Portuguese Assembleia da República, but they expect that the whole national parliament will become more involved with the activity of MEPs in Brussels, with national committees cross-cutting national-European borders, by inviting Portuguese MEPs that siege in their European counterparts.

In general, our interviewed MEPs underline that Portugal is not a small and powerless country. As Elisa Ferreira argues ‘I reject the idea that all we have to do is to be a good student. This attitude is very harmful for the country. We need

51 49 to defend our interests and build alliances either with other medium countries or with Southern or Northern European countries’.

52 50 5. Conclusions

The use of smart power is crucial if a state like Portugal aims to thrive in the EP, reaching its political and economic objectives. In this report, we have identified several dimensions of how Portugal can have the opportunity to “punch above its weight”, making a smart use of its institutional and political resources.

The first report of this series defines three major dimensions of smart power. First, the capacity to identify issues in advance. Time gives Portugal a good advantage in political competition in the EU. Secondly, joining the winning coalition is crucial. The capacity to be on the winning side of every bargaining process makes the difference in terms of whether Portugal uses its smart power. Finally, we can claim that Portugal is using smart power when it builds alliances with countries with similar policy positions, regardless of geography or political ideology of the governing party.

How is smart power used in the EP? Based on our interviews with MEPs, it is possible to say that there is a relatively poor support from the PERMREP, which makes it more difficult for MEPs to have a unified and coherent idea of what are the country’s interests. Of course that this is partially compensated by excellent staffing provided by the EP, which enhances working conditions significantly, particularly in comparison with the Portuguese legislature. Nevertheless, it is difficult to have a clear identification of important issues in advance.

The Portuguese capacity to join winning coalitions and be on the winning side of the bargaining process has some weaknesses. Portugal does not have any MEP in ALDE, the centre parliamentary party group in the EP, which often acts as the party group that decides the final outcome of the bargaining, thus having a political importance that is significantly more than its pure number of seats in the chamber. Portugal does not have its voice heard in this crucial party group and, furthermore, does not have access to political information within this group. On the other hand, Portugal has held important committee chairs over the past 26 years and placed some MEPs working on important legislative projects like the ‘Six Pack’ to tackle the effects of the financial crisis.

Finally, Portugal does not seemwithin-country to have a coherent and systematic alliance policy. It is possible to discern that there is, for some key policy areas like Agriculture, Fisheries, and so forth, a effort to reach consensus. In other words, in thesecross-country areas, Portuguese MEPs are nationally driven, coordinating their positions and voting cohesively, regardless of their ideological position. On the other hand, alliances are difficult to confirm. In these cases, Portuguese MEPs go for a party-driven position, voting according to their EP parliamentary party group.

5153 52 3 3 3 3 2 2 N 1 2 1 1 . and

nt for ing the a. ng and N arantee 73/2009 N erational 7/2006 laying on 5/2008 ity. 85/EEC on the ion of aluation

s regards movement of persons with a long-stay visa a with persons of movement regards s tion of excessive deficit of the MS in the euro are of euro the MS in the deficit tionexcessive of s certain provisions relating to financialmanageme n the safetyandhealth at work pregnantof workers uis. feeding. feeding. difficulties with respect to their financial stabil financial their to with respect difficulties rrec freedom, security and justice. and justice. security freedom, most regionsof Union. the system offinancing by theEuropean Agricultural Gu nd of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) (EC) Regulation Council amending ofnd Council the nd of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) (EC) Regulation Council amending ofnd Council the nd of the Council on common provisions for monitori provisions on common ofnd Council the nd of the Council establishing an Agency for the op the an for Agency establishing ofnd Council the Implement Convention the amending ofnd Council the armers in respect of the year 2013. 2013. of year the respect in armers EP and of the Council on the establishment of an ev an of establishment on the of Council the and EP by by PortugueseMEPs (June2009-November 2012) certain MS experiencing or threatened with serious threatened serious with or experiencing MScertain Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report regard as Fund, Fisheries European the on 1198/2006 assessing draft budgetary plans and ensuring the co the ensuring plans and budgetary draft assessing down specific measures for agriculture in the in outer for agriculture measures down specific part the of forming transactions of MS by scrutiny Fund. a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report for f payments direct of application the regards as macroeconomic imbalances. a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report mechanism to verify application to the Schengen acq to Schengen the to application verify mechanism Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report management of large-scaleIT systems in the area of a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report a N 562/2006 (EC) Regulation and Schengen Agreement introduction of measures to encourage improvement i improvement encourage to measures of introduction workers who have recently given birth or are breast are or birth given recently have who workers

S&D N 24 (EC) Regulation amending of Council the and EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report S&D N 48 (EC) Regulation amending of Council the and EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report EPP Report on the proposal aregulation for of the S&D Directive 92/ Council amending Council the of and the of E P directive a for proposal the on Report S&D correct and prevention on the of Council the and EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report GUE/NGL MEP Luís Paulo Alves Group Luís Ordinary LegislativeInitiative Capoulas Santos Carlos Coelho Edite Estrela Elisa Ferreira João Ferreira Appendix 1. Ordinary Legislative Initiatives signed Initiatives Legislative Ordinary 1. Appendix

54 53 16 16 1 1 N

N the s policy tion of a ature and N 774/94 ance to the applying to egards the for pig meat, for pig meat, N 861/2006 861/2006 N om Turkey as as Turkey om agreements. ion to their

ns in the framework of Article XXVIII of GATT 1994, GATT of XXVIII Article of framework the in ns nd nd of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) countries not members of the European Community. Community. the of European members not countries nd of the Council concerning the implementation of EC) N 2658/87 on the tariff and statistical nomencl sures for the implementation of the common fisherie common the of implementation for the sures conferred on the Commission. l position at first reading with a view to the adop the to view a with reading first at position l nd of the Council on the allocation of tariff-rate tariff-rate of allocation the on Council the of nd rts rts of olive fr oil products and other agricultural EU. nd of the Council amending Regulation (EC) Council nd other residues. residues. nd other tain Community tariff quotas high quality beef, and tariff quotas tain Community nd ofnd the Council amending Council Regulations (EC) N 2008/97, n aquaculture. nd of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) (EC) Regulation Council amending ofnd Council the 07 N 708/20 (EC) Regulation amending ofnd Council the d of the Council amending Directive 2001/83/EC as r as Directive 2001/83/EC amending Council the of d of medicinal products which are falsified in relat in falsified which are products medicinal of transitionalarrangements forbilateral investment oncerning use of alien and locally absent species i species absent locally and of use alien oncerning amending and supplementing Annex I to Regulation (E Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for Tariff. Customs Common on the proposal the on Report Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the the to Federation Russian the from ofexports wood on Report from imports dumped against protection on 1225/2009 Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report mea financial Community establishing 2006 22 May of an the of EP directive a for proposal the on Report preventionof entry the into the legal supplychain source. or history identity, and in the area of the Law of the Sea. Sea. theLaw of the of area the and in a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report c Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the establishing Council of andEP the the of decision on Report Agreements concluded by the EU following negotiatio Report on the proposal for a decision of the EP and of the Council on providing macro-financial assist opening and providing for the administration of cer administration the for and providing opening regards the delegated and implementing powers to be to powers implementing and the delegated regards (EC) (EC) N 779/98 and (EC) 1506/98 in the field of impo poultrymeslin,and meat, wheat and brans,a sharps a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report

GUE/NGL S&D Recommendation for second reading on the Counci MEP Group Ordinary LegislativeInitiative Marisa Matias Vital Moreira

55 54 1 N N ation 9/69and th tain C) N N 55/2008 55/2008 N 73making ked tothe . e to Ukraine l l acts. ssistance to ulation ulation (EC) N dumped imports from countries not members of the nd nd of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) r countries and territories participating in orparticipating lin in territories and r countries public public of Moldova. nufacture of finished pharmaceuticals and amending Annex andI amending to pharmaceuticals finished of nufacture f certain goods coming under Regulation (EEC) N 105 N (EEC) Regulation under coming goods certain f the form of Community tariff quotas in 1995 for cer in 1995 for quotas tariff Community ofform the er, brokering and transit, update of dual use items use dual update of transit, and er, brokering national non-proprietary’ (INN) from the World Heal of the macro-financial providing Council assistanc of the Council providing furthermacro-financial a for specified treatment duty-free providing ofnd Council the nd of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) (EC) Regulation Council amending ofnd Council the (E Regulation Council on amending ofnd Council the nd of the Council repealing Regulation (EEC) N 429/ (EEC) Regulation repealing ofnd Council the 09 N 428/20 (EC) up Regulation amending ofnd Council a the nd of the Council repealing certain obsolete Counci obsolete certain repealing ofnd Council the n of the EP and of the Council amending Council Reg Council amending Council the of and EP the of n introducing autonomous trade preferences for the Re for the preferences trade autonomous introducing a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report pharmaceutical activeingredients bearingan ‘inter the for used ma products specified and Organisation fo measures trade exceptional introducing 1215/2009 Regulation (EEC) N 2658/87. 2658/87. N (EEC) Regulation a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report Georgia Georgia a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report process. and Association Stabilisation EU’ the of and EP decision a for proposal the on Report processed agricultural products. products. agricultural processed the of and EP decision a for proposal the on Report (EC)Nestablishing 1416/95 certain concessions in 0 renewing for 2000 the measures laid down Regul in measures the for 2000 0 renewing 215/200 NRegulation (EC) and Turkey in originating special provisions for imports into the Community o into the Community for imports provisions special Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report transf exports, of control the for regime Community Report on the proposal for a regulation of the EP a EP the of regulation a for proposal the Kyrgyz Republic. on Report 1225/2009 of 30 November 2009 on Community. protection European against a EP the of regulation a for proposal the on Report MEP Group Ordinary LegislativeInitiative Maria do EPP Report on the proposal for a regulatio

56 55 N 1

ablishing ablishing

) 13 as part of the General programme 'Solidarity and l Decision 2004/904/EC. 2004/904/EC. Decision l vessels. of the Council amending Decision N 573/2007/EC est http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/search.html ( the the European Refugee Fund for the period 2008 to 20 1185/2003 on the removal of fins of sharks on board on sharks of fins of the removal on 1185/2003 and EP the of decision a for proposal the on Report Managementof Migration Flows' and repealing Counci Greens/E FA MEP Céu Patrão Neves Group Rui Tavares Ordinary LegislativeInitiative website Parliament European Source:

57

Alexander Trechsel Alexander H. Trechsel is Professor of Political Science and holder of the Swiss Chair in Federalism and Democracy at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. He received his Ph.D. in political science (with distinction) from the University of Geneva (Switzerland). Before coming to the EUI in 2005 he was Vice-Director of the Research and Documentation Cen- tre on Direct Democracy (c2d) at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva (1999-2005). Prof. Trechsel initiated and coordinates the Euro- pean Union Democracy Observatory (EUDO) at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the EUI

Richard Rose Richard Rose is currently completing Representing Europeans: A Pragmatic Approach, for publication by Oxford University Press. Over the years his research on comparative public policy has been pre- sented in seminars in 25 of the 27 EU member states and translated into 18 languages. He is a part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute and research professr at the University of Strathclyde Glasgow.

59

2 2

Working paper February 2013