Brussels, 26/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - In final voting on draft reports in parliamentary committee, members of the European Parliament will no longer vote by show of hands but by roll call. On Wednesday 26 February, the plenary session passed this amendment to the Parliament's internal rules in order to increase the transparency of voting procedures (see EUROPE 11014).
Roll-call voting records the names of the MEPs who voted and how they voted (for, against or abstaining). With its adoption by 617 votes to 23, and 12 abstentions, of the report by Carlo Casini (EPP, Italy) on amending Rule 166 of the Parliament's rules of procedure on final votes and Rule 195(3) on votes in committee, MEPs made roll-call voting compulsory in all final votes in committee on resolutions and on legislation.
The Parliament also decided to make roll-call voting compulsory for non-binding resolutions in plenary. Currently roll-call voting is only obligatory for legislation and is optional for resolutions. The changes will come into force from the first day of the next plenary session (10 March).
“Adopting a report is a responsibility that has to be assumed and being able to explain and justify each decision before European citizens is a duty. The European Parliament represents the people, transparency must, then, be the rule”, commented Marc Tarabella (S&D, Belgium).
Andrew Duff, (ALDE, UK) said that “more and more critical votes on draft laws are taken at committee stage. This is especially so when progress in the trialogue negotiations allows agreement to be reached at the first reading stage of the co-decision procedure”. “No respectable MEP needs to hide how he or she votes”, he stated. (LC)