Central European MEPs as Agents of Two Principals: Party Cohesion in the European Parliament after Enlargement

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of Central European MEPs on party cohesion in the European Parliament. By applying the principal-agent theory, it is also analyzed how loyal are the MEPs of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia to their European political groups and national parties. The empirical research carried out in this study demonstrates that the Central European MEPs have not brought more division to their political groups, but have been loyal members of their European parties. The Central European MEPs have not weakened the cohesion of the EP party groups, but party cohesion was even further strengthened between 2004 and 2014. Cohesion is the strongest in the biggest parliamentary groups. EPP and S&D set the direction for most politicians on most occasions. Clear ’rebel’ cases, when national parties as a whole went against their European political groups are not more than 2-3 percent of all votes in the two biggest European political families. National parties have a bigger room of maneuver in the smaller political groups. In ECR and GUE-NGL the difference between loyalty to the national party and the European party group is significantly higher than in EPP and S&D.