Finally, the Directive did not regulate explicitly the way this data could be accessed by national law enforcement and intelligence authorities.

Transcription

1 European party competition: is there a liberty-security dimension? Valentin Stoian Mihai Viteazul National Intelligence Academy Valentin.stoian@hotmail.com 1. Introduction While many studies focus on European policy making, the interplay of European institutions has received so far much greater attention than voting behavior in the European Parliament. The competition between the European Council, the European Parliament and the Commission has been addressed in the context of veto-player theory (Tsebelis 1994, 1996; Hagemann and Høyland, 2010), preference formation, and the connection between electoral rules and outcomes (Prosser, 2016) Studies that concern voting inside the European Parliament address a wide number questions such as: the relationship between parties and MEPs (Thierse, 2016; Simon Hug 2016), party behavior (Kreppel and Hix, 2003) or the position of candidates for elections on different issues (Walczak and van der Brug, 2013). However, the European Parliament represents a fertile field of study for the development of political ideologies, especially given the weak electoral link between voters and MEPs. According to Hix and Høyland (2013), given that European Union elections are treated as second order (Reif and Schmitt, 1997), and that they are predominantly seen as a referendum on national policies, as well as due to the distant nature of the European Parliament, MEP behavior generally follows the lines of traditional political divisions (Hix and Høyland, 2013 ). Thus, according to previous studies, two clear lines of competition can be discerned: a left-right division, pitting those favoring more redistributive economic and socially liberal policies against those preferring a social conservatism and a greater autonomy for the market, one the one hand and a pro-european versus anti-european cleavage, splitting those favoring greater powers for the common institutions against those supporting a Europe of nations (Hix and Høyland, 2013; Benoit and McElroy, 2007, 2011; Hix, Noury and Roland, 2006, 2007, 2009; Hix and Noury, 2009; Hooghe, Marks and Wilson, 2002; Marks et all, 2006). A plot of the two dimensions has consistently shown an inverted-u pattern, where the ideological extremes are generally against wider powers for the Union, while the ideologically central parties prefer greater integration. Yet another policy split has been discussed in relation to the growing Euroscepticism (Rohrschneider and Whitefield, 2016) Further, voting behavior in the European Parliament has also been investigated in relation to which affiliation is more important: the national or the political (Hix, Noury and Roland, 2005). Several studies have showed a tendency towards increasing cohesion at the level of the party group and decreasing at that of that of the national delegation, pointing towards the increasing political identification of MEPs along the past legislatures. Moreover, this ideological identification has predicted the votes or rapporteurship choices on specific policies, such as the European Services Directive (Hix, Noury and Roland, 2009; Lindberg, 2008). Yet another area of study has looked into whether coalition behavior generally obeys a leftright division or whether other patterns can be observed. Hix and Høyland found that three types of coalition behavior exist in the EP : a grand coalition of the EPP and SOC, often with the centrist Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) joining these two parties in a super grand coalition ; (b) a left coalition of SOC, ALDE, and the two groups to the left of the socialists, the Greens/European Free Alliance (G/EFA) and the radical left European United Left Nordic Green Left (EUL-NGL); and (c) a right coalition of EPP, ALDE, and the main group to the right of the 1

2 EPP, which is currently the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR). However, coalition behavior across types of issues debated by the EP is not consistent, as votes on some policy areas are carried through disproportionately by a grand coalition (budgetary issues), others by a right coalition (economic and monetary), while civil liberties and gender equality issues bring together the left much more often (Hix and Høyland, 2013). The article aims to examine whether a liberty-security dimension exists in the European Parliament and to what extent it is predicted by the other dimensions already identified by researchers. Moreover, it also asks what type of coalition behavior European parties exhibited when faced with such choices as well as whether there has been a variation in time in this dimension. It does so by analyzing the 27 roll-call votes taken in 2005 (8) and 2016 (19) on two directives relevant for this dimension: Directive 2006/24/EC on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC and the Directive 2016/681/EU on the use of passenger name record (PNR) data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime. The article first presents the methodology of the study, which relies on coding the amendments proposed to the directives and a -2 to 2 scale and then constructing a liberty-security index at the level of the political group. Moreover, the Hix index of cohesion is applied to both national delegations and political groups. Finally, data on the ideological positioning of party groups was extracted from Benoit and McElroy (2007, 2012) in order to assess the relationship between other dimensions of party competition and the liberty-security dimension. Coalition behavior is assessed through measuring the extent to which each political group was represented in the winning coalition of each vote. The article s main conclusions are that 1. All the amendments and final votes were carried through by a super-grand coalition 2. A U shaped relationship can be observed between ideology and the liberty-security positioning, where left-wing parties and right-wing parties oppose any strengthening of the EU s regulation in the field of security (for different reasons nonetheless), while central parties support it. Further, a similar relationship can be also found between the liberty- security dimension and the pro or anti-eu dimension. 2. The Directives The first Directive analyzed in this article is the Directive 2006/24/EC, which was adopted on the 14 th of December 2005 and regulated the retention of and access to communication metadata from telecommunications providers by national law-enforcement agencies. According to the Directive, Member states were to create a legislative framework that would impose on telecommunications providers an obligation to store telecommunications metadata for up to two years. Thus providers would have to keep and relevant authorities of Member states could access traffic and location data on both legal and natural persons and the related data necessary to identify the subscriber or registered user (Directive 2006/24/EC). Data that were to be stored included the telephone number and address of both the one making and the one receiving the call) the user ID, IP address and name and address of both parties engaged in online communication, time and duration of telephone call and time of log-on and log-off of the Internet access service, data necessary to identify the equipment and location of the communication International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), digital subscriber line (DSL), cell ID, etc. (Stoian, 2015). 2

3 Finally, the Directive did not regulate explicitly the way this data could be accessed by national law enforcement and intelligence authorities. It stipulated that procedures to be followed and the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain access to retained data in accordance with necessity and proportionality requirements shall be defined by each Member State in its national law, subject to the relevant provisions of European Union law or public international law, and in particular the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights (Directive 2006/24/EC). Eventually, through the April 2014 Digital Rights Ireland (European Court of Justice, ), The European Court of Justice invalidated the Directive. It argued that it breached the rights to privacy as stipulated in Article 8 or the European Charter of Fundamental Rights for several reason. The Court complained of the generality of the Directive, allowing use of data without any restriction on the potentially targeted persons or on the type of data that could possibly be retained. Further, the Court also complained that no limits are imposed on the use of data either through a limiting criterion or through the requirement that judicial authorization be obtained. Finally, the Court also criticized the fact that no guarantee imposed that data collected would be stored in Europe. These reasons allowed the Court to declare the Directive as being disproportionate to the legitimate means pursued and to declare it invalid (Stoian, 2015). The Passenger Name Record Directive was adopted on the 14 th of April 2016, and regulates the establishment of a data record for airplane passenger travelling to EU member states from outside the EU. Similarly to its predecessor, the PNR directive aims to combat terrorism but also to ensure security, to protect the life and safety of persons, and to create a legal framework for the protection of PNR data with regard to their processing by competent authorities (Directive (EU) 2016/681). It regulates the collection and storage of data of airplane passengers such as Date of reservation/issue of ticket, date(s) of intended travel, Name(s), Address and contact information (telephone number, address), All forms of payment information, including billing address, Complete travel itinerary for specific PNR, frequent flyer information, Travel agency/travel agent, Travel status of passenger, including confirmations, check-in status, no-show or go-show information, Ticketing field information, including ticket number, date of ticket issuance and oneway tickets, automated ticket fare quote fields, Seat number and other seat information, Any advance passenger information (API) data collected (including the type, number, country of issuance and expiry date of any identity document, nationality, family name, given name, gender, date of birth, airline, flight number, departure date, arrival date, departure port, arrival port, departure time and arrival time) (Directive (EU) 2016/681) The directive requires Member states to establish a Passenger Information Unit, which will be created by an authority competent for the prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of terrorist offences and of serious crime or a branch of such an authority which will be entrusted with collecting PNR data from air carriers, storing and processing those data and transferring those data or the result of processing them to the competent authorities and exchanging both PNR data and the result of processing those data with the PIUs of other Member States and with Europol (Directive (EU) 2016/681). In order to safeguard privacy, data will be extracted from the aircarriers through the push method, which implies that air carriers transfer ( push ) the required PNR data to the authority requesting them, thus allowing air carriers to retain control of what data is provided. The Directive also stipulates a maximum retention period of five years but also orders air carriers to depersonalize data after six month, by eliminating information about the identity of the flyer, which can be revealed only after judicial authorization (Directive (EU) 2016/681). 3

4 3. Methodology The article analyzes a total of 27 roll-call votes taken on these directives. They include both votes and amendments and final votes on the directives. Eight votes were taken in 2005 and 19 votes in For the 2005 votes, data was collected from the database provided by Simon Hix on his personal website. Data for the 2016 votes were received from watch (votewatch.eu). Each vote was coded on a -2 (pro-liberty) to +2 scale, according to the overall direction of the vote. Amendments were collected from the website of the European Parliament and from the website of the European Digital Rights, a continent-wide NGO network dedicated to the protection of digital rights. Amendments that suggested an increase in the power of national authorities to collect and access data were coded towards the security pole of the continuum, while those reducing that ability were coded towards the liberty end of the continuum. The percentage of yes votes, no votes and abstentions was then computed for each group and each national delegation for each of the 27 votes. The liberty-security score for each group and national delegation was calculated according to the following formula: Sec = n 1 %YES i Code i The liberty security score was computed for each group and each national delegation, for the 2005 and 2016 votes. This was done by multiplying the percentage of YES votes for each national delegation and each political group, with the code of the vote. Only the yes votes were selected, as they represent a clear expression of will for a particular proposal to become law. This leads to the implicit computation of abstentions as similar to no votes. Further, absent MEPs were excluded completely from the calculation. Finally, the values were subjected to a z transformation, in order to standardize them to a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. Low values represent a pro-liberty orientation, while high values, a pro-security approach. Furthermore, the Hix cohesion index (or agreement index) was calculated for both national delegations and political groups according to the formula C = Max(Y,N,A)+1 2 [(Y+N+A)+max(Y,N,A)] Y+N+A The ideological position of the political groups were reproduced from Benoit and McElroy (2007, 2012). They base their attribution of ideological positions to political groups on two expert surveys they conducted, including questions on the general left-right positioning, social issues and the approach to European Union integration. The first expert survey was conducted in 2006, and regarded the same Parliament that voted Directive 2002/58/EC. Thus, these results represent a much better approximation of ideological positions of party groups than the other expert survey, which was conducted in 2012, during the Parliament. At the time of the writing of the article, no independent measurement of the ideological positioning for the post-2014 legislature was known. In order to evaluate coalition behavior, the contribution of each group to the winning coalition was calculated. In the cases of some votes, the winning coalition supported a rejection of the motion, while for most other votes, the amendments was passed. Finally, groups were ranked according to their contribution to the winning coalition. 4

5 4. The data a) s for Directive 2006/24/EC Table 1. National delegation liberty-security score and cohesion Country Liberty-Security score Cohesion Austria Belgium Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden UK Source: own calculations 5

6 Figure 1: National delegation liberty-security score National delegation liberty-security score Finland Netherlands Cyprus Greece Sweden Estonia Slovakia Czech Republic UK Ireland Lithuania Austria Latvia Denmark Slovenia Germany Luxembourg Poland Italy France Portugal Hungary Belgium Spain Malta Figure 2: National delegation cohesion National delegation cohesion Slovakia Ireland Czech Latvia Cyprus Greece Slovenia Luxembourg Poland Italy Portugal Hungary Malta

7 Table 2: Group liberty-security score and cohesion Group Liberty-security score Cohesion EPP-ED EUL/NGL IND/DEM SOC UEN na G/EFA ALDE Source: own calculations Figure 3: Group liberty-security score Group liberty-security score G/EFA EUL/NGL IND/DEM na ALDE UEN EPP-ED SOC

8 Figure 4: Group Cohesion Group cohesion G/EFA EUL/NGL IND/DEM SOC EPP-ED UEN ALDE na Table 3: Left-right dimension and liberty-security score Group Left-right score Liberty-security score EPP-ED EUL/NGL IND/DEM SOC UEN G/EFA ALDE Source: Benoit and McElroy (2007) and own calculations 8

9 Figure 5: Left-right positioning v liberty-security score Left-right positioning v liberty-security score 1.5 SOC EPP-ED ALDE UEN EUL/NGL G/EFA IND/DEM -1.5 Table 4: %Group contribution out of winning coalition EPP-ED SOC ALDE UEN IND DEM EU-NGL G-Efa Source: Own calculations 9

10 Figure 6: Liberty-security score vs cohesion- national delegations Liberty-security score vs cohesion- national delegations Malta Finland Estonia Netherlands Greece Sweden Cyprus Slovakia Denmark Czech Republic 0.4 Austria Latvia Lithuania Ireland UK 0.2 Italy Poland Germany Luxembourg Slovenia Hungary Belgium Spain Portugal France b) s for Directive 2016/681/EU Table 5. National delegation liberty-security score and cohesion National delegation Liberty-security score Cohesion Austria Belgium Bulgaria Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania

11 Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden United Kingdom Source: own calculations Figure 7: National delegation liberty-security score National delegation liberty-security score Netherlands Austria Greece Ireland Germany United Kingdom France Spain Estonia Cyprus Sweden Slovenia Portugal Latvia Hungary Luxembourg Finland Czech Republic Lithuania Belgium Italy Poland Croatia Slovakia Romania Malta Denmark Bulgaria

12 Figure 8: National delegation cohesion National delegation cohesion Slovakia Ireland Czech Republic Latvia Cyprus Greece Slovenia Luxembourg Poland Italy Portugal Hungary Malta Table 6: Group liberty-security score and cohesion Group Liberty-security score Cohesion ALDE ECR EFDD ENF EPP GreensEFA GUE-NGL NI S&D

13 Figure 9: Group liberty-security score Group liberty-security score GUE-NGL GreensEFA EFDD ENF NI ALDE S&D ECR EPP Figure 10: Group cohesion Group cohesion NI EFDD ENF ALDE S&D GreensEFA ECR GUE-NGL EPP Table 7: Left-right dimension and liberty-security score Group Left-right score Liberty-security score GUE-NGL GreensEFA EFDD

14 ALDE S&D ECR EPP Source: Benoit and McElroy (2012) and own calculations Figure 11: Left-right positioning v liberty-security score 20 Left-right positioning v liberty-security score 15 S&D ALDE EPP ECR GUE-NGL GreensEFA EFDD Table 8: % Group contribution out of winning coalition Group EPP S&D ECR ALDE ENF EFDD NI GUE-NGL GreensEFA

15 Figure 12: Liberty-security score vs cohesion- national delegations Lib-sec score v cohesion national delegation 1.2 Netherlands Austria Greece Ireland 1 Slovakia Malta Romania Denmark Bulgaria Poland Croatia Czechia 0.8 Lithuania Italy Belgium Finland Hungary Luxembourg 0.6 Estonia Portugal Slovenia Latvia Spain Sweden France Cyprus United Kingdom Germany Discussion Overall, the article shows that group loyalties are more important than national delegation affiliation when voting on liberty and security issues. This confirms the findings in the literature which argue that the European Parliament, due to the weak electoral link, acts as a space of ideological attachments and where politics takes place in its classical sense. Average national delegation cohesion was as opposed to group cohesion, which amounted to in the 2005 vote while the same pattern is repeated in 2016, where group cohesion average is close to 0.8 as opposed to 0.65 in national delegations. Next, one can observe a similar pattern of voting and cohesion in both the 2005 and 2016 votes. Both votes were carried by a super-grand coalition, where the EPP and S&D were joined by ALDE and ECR (in 2016, as the group did not exist in 2005). However, between 2005 and 2016, ALDE recorded an increase in support for the security side of the continuum. The opposition to the directives was offered by the Greens, the European United Left and the extreme-right/anti- European groups. When plotting these results in two dimensions, one can see that as one advances from the left to the right, there is a low support for the directives, followed by an increase of the pro-security vote in the middle and finally by a drop as one reaches the extreme right. Moreover, due to the fact that the data offered by Benoit and McElroy do not cover the post 2014 Parliament, the author had to rely on data obtained from the legislature. Thus, one group that has not been included in the plots is the extreme- right ENF, led by France s Front National, which also voted primordially against the 2016 Directive. 1 Excluding the non-affiliated MEPs 15

16 From a political theory point of view, these results confirm the hypothesis of ideological voting. Left-wing groups have a reason to oppose the increase in security measures, while rightwing groups oppose the directive due to their criticism of the increasing powers of the EU and their belief in national solutions. Alternatively, political groups in the center support an increase in the European coordination of security measures, either because they hold the view that a safety and combatting terrorism are important or that European coordination to achieve is necessary. Moreover, most of these groups are also in government in their member states, leading to more responsible behavior. One interesting case is that of the European socialists, which in 2016 seem far more split than in 2005, suggesting that some of the members rebelled and chose to ally with the left-wing groups to oppose the directive. Finally, while the 2005 does not show any particular separation of pro-security and pro-liberty member states, the 2016 picture is a wholly different one. Overall one can distinguish a prosecurity new Europe versus pro-liberty old Europe. New European states predominate the top of the most pro-security national delegations, Bulgaria having sent the strongest pro-security delegation. Denmark represents the exception in this particular ordering. One can conclude that new, small states whose national delegations perceive an obligation to vote with the national interest tend to coalesce and vote for security. Alternatively, countries such as the Netherlands or Austria have split delegations which vote predominantly against increasing European security measures. Malta represents an interesting case, being, in both cases, overwhelmingly pro-security and fully cohesive, maybe also taking into account its minuscule (5 MEPs) national delegation. References Tsebelis, George (1994) The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter, The American Political Science Review, 88(1), pp Tsebelis, George (1996) More on the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter: Response to Moser The American Political Science Review, 90 (4), pp Hagemann, Sarah, Bjørn Høyland (2010) Bicameral Politics in the European Union Journal of Common Market Studies, 48 (4), pp Prosser, Christopher (2016) Second order electoral rules and national party systems: The Duvergerian effects of European Parliament elections, European Union Politics, September 2016; vol. 17, 3: pp Stefan Thierse, Going on record: Revisiting the logic of roll-call vote requests in the European Parliament European Union Politics, June 2016; vol. 17, 2: pp Simon Hug, Party pressure in the European Parliament, European Union Politics, June 2016; vol. 17, 2: pp Amie Kreppel, Simon Hix, From "Grand Coalition" To Left-Right Confrontation: Explaining the Shifting Structure of Party Competition in the European Parliament Comparative Political Studies February 2003 vol. 36 no Agnieszka Walczak and Wouter van der Brug, Representation in the European Parliament: Factors affecting the attitude congruence of voters and candidates in the EP elections, European Union Politics, March 2013; vol. 14, 1: pp , first published on October 22, 2012 Simon Hix and Bjørn Høyland, Empowerment of the European Parliament, Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci :

17 Reif, K. & Schmitt, H. European Journal of Political Research (1997) 31: 109. doi: /a: Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2006) 'Dimensions of Politics in the European Parliament', American Journal of Political Science, 50(2) Simon Hix and Abdul Noury (2009) 'After Enlargement: Voting Patterns in the Sixth European Parliament', Legislative Studies Quarterly, 34(2) Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2009) 'Voting Patterns and Alliance Formation in the European Parliament', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 364, McElroy, Gail and Kenneth Benoit Policy Positioning in the European Parliament. European Union Politics. 13(1): McElroy, Gail and Kenneth Benoit (2007) Party Groups and Policy Positions in the European Parliament. Party Politics 13(1): Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, Carole J. Wilson Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration? Comparative Political Studies October 2002 vol. 35 no doi: / Gary Marks, Liesbet Hooghe, Moira Nelson,Erica Edwards, Party Competition and European Integration in the East and West Different Structure, Same Causality, Comparative Political Studies, Volume 39 Number 2 March Robert Rohrschneider and Stephen Whitefield, Responding to growing European Unionskepticism? The stances of political parties toward European integration in Western and Eastern Europe following the financial crisis European Union Politics, March 2016; vol. 17, 1: pp , first published on October 26, 2015 Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2005), Power to the Parties: Cohesion and Competition in the European Parliament, , B.J.Pol.S. 35, DOI: /S Simon Hix, Abdul Noury and Gerard Roland (2007) Democratic Politics in the European Parliament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Björn Lindberg, Are political parties controlling legislative decision-making in the European Parliament? The case of the services directive, Journal of European Public Policy Volume 15, Issue 8 Directive 2006/24/EC, Accessed Valentin Stoian, A comparative analysis of the Jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice and the Romanian Constitutional Court on Metadata Retention, Romanian Intelligence Studies Review, 13/2015 Directive (EU) 2016/681, Accessed European Digital Rights, FFII-PI%20final.pdf, Accessed