National versus European: Party Control over Members of the European Parliament

Abstract

This article examines different strategies of national governmental parties to influence ‘their’ Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), posing the following questions: Do national parties try to control voting behaviour of their MEPs? And do control mechanisms enhance the probability that an MEP toes a national party line rather than following his or her European party group? The analysis reveals differences between individual parties, indicating that at least some national parties actively attempt to control their MEPs. Furthermore, the article evaluates the success of the various approaches, taking compliance with the position of the minister in the Council as a benchmark. The results show that the overall effect of control mechanisms remains small. Instead of toeing the line of their national party's minister, MEPs tend to vote with their European group.