There are a few cases when a healthy majority vote in the Committee to veto a delegated act or RPS measure has not met the absolute majority threshold in the full Parliament.
Success leaves clues
It is useful to look at why these outcomes occurred. They are rare. They don’t happen by accident, and it has nothing to do with the alignment of the stars on the day of the vote.
Looking at a recent case, which I’ll write about more later, the following reasons can be derived. The list is in descending order of importance.
- Time. A major factor is a time you have to get your campaign in action from the successful challenge in Committee to the vote in Plenary. it is hard to get running in two weeks. If the vote in the plenary is months later after the recess, your chances are higher.
- How many national Governments whip their national delegations.
- The amount of effort and political capital the Commission Services and Commissioner put into defending their proposal.
- How many MEPs split from their Party line.
- How well interests can campaign at the local constituency level to reach out directly and at scale to MEPs.
- How well-resourced interests are to mount a genuine pan-European bipartisan campaign harnessing real constituents.
- A broad coalition of unlikely interests has a greater influence.
- The amount of news at the local level on the issue.
- The amount of social media interest at the constituency level on the issue.
- The degree to which interests want to spin and deviate from a purist view of reality.