Working group to look at how to liven up debates

Improving attendance of Parliamentary debates will be one of group’s main priorities.

Hannes Swoboda, a Austrian centre-left MEP  and vice-president of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the European Parliament, will lead a special eight-member working group on improving attendance of Parliamentary debates.

According to an official, the working group will have a “wide” remit to “improve the attractiveness” of the debates in the plenary chamber for MEPs. The group will have until the end of the year to report back to political group leaders and present its proposals for changes.

Group leaders were expected today (23 September) to confirm the mandate of the working group as well as its members. Proposed members of the group include József Szájer, a Hungarian centre-right, Diana Wallis, a UK Liberal, Rebecca Harms, a co-leader of the Greens, Richard Ashworth, a UK Conservative, Francesco Enrico Speroni, an Italian far-right member, and Angelika Werthmann, an Austrian independent.

The working group was put together after MEPs on 7 September objected to plans from their political group leaders to fine members €70 if they failed to attend the ‘State of the Union’ speech by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

Many members complained that the plan would violate their freedoms as elected officials.

The Parliament has for years been preoccupied with the question of how to make debates between MEPs, government ministers and commissioners more interesting. Reforms implemented in 2008, which were meant to make debates more lively, gave extra time for MEPs to follow up comments made by speakers and scheduled major political debates on Wednesdays. But those moves have had little effect on attendance in the debates.

Click Here: New Zealand rugby store