The BLOOM team selected texts related to the climate, the ocean, and biodiversity – adopted during the 9th legislature of the European Parliament (2019-2024). These documents are neither an exhaustive nor a representative sample (i.e., random) of the texts related to these themes. Instead, this list contains the texts we believe to be the most important in terms of their impact (positive or negative) on nature.
We included several amendments from each text if they met two criteria:
- Detailed voting results were available for the amendments.
- NGOs had issued voting recommendations for the amendments.
These two criteria allowed us to ensure that the amendments chosen were decisive. Only amendments of a certain importance are voted on by "roll call", i.e., where a group of MEPs request the publication of the details of the vote. The second criterion also allowed us to make sure that the MEPs could not ignore the impact their vote would have on nature as they had received advice from the NGOs.
In total, 20 amendments related to 11 texts were selected and analyzed to rank MEPs.
For each amendment, points were awarded or withdrawn according to the vote of the MEPs, as follows:
| The different types of voting | Number of points |
|---|---|
| Vote to Protect Nature | +1 |
| Vote to Destroy Nature | -1 |
| Abstention/Absence | 0 |
The sum of these points was then calculated and calibrated to range from 0 to 20. In the calculation, care has been taken to consider the start and end dates of term of office. Some MEPs arrived during the legislature to replace MEPs who had begun a mandate in their own country or who had left the parliament because of Brexit. For these MEPs, only the texts passed during their term of office were considered for the calculation of the score.
Our analysis integrates a total number of 736 MEPs after British MEPs were removed. This elevated number of MEPs in comparison with the current number of 705 MEPs is due to the fact that some MEPs left their positions during a term and were replaced. We chose to evaluate all MEPs, including those who left and those who arrived over the course of the legislature, so long as they voted on at least one of the texts we chose for the analysis. This list was then filtered to keep only the MEPs who will be present in the ENVI committee to vote on the nature restoration law. Between members and substitutes, 171 MEPs sit on the ENVI Committee. Of those, 11 MEPs were not ranked* because they recently joined the parliament and did not take part in the votes for the texts we selected :
- Christophe CLERGEAU (S&D)
- Beatrice COVASSI (S&D)
- Elisabetta DE BLASIS (ID)
- Mercedes BRESSO (S&D)
- Nikos PAPANDREOU (S&D)
- Fransesca PEPUCCI (EPP)
- Erik POULSEN (Renew Europe)
- Maria Veronica ROSSI (ID)
- Anders VISTISEN (ID)
- Achille VARIATI (S&S)
- Maria Angela DANZÍ (NI)
A color gradient was assigned to each MEP according to its score:
- “Green” for MEPs with a score between 14/20 and 20/20
- “Orange” for MEPs with a score between 8/20 and 13/20
- “Red” for MEPs with a score between 0/20 and 7/20
All codes and data used to rank MEPs are shared on a GitHub repository
* Assessment based on the composition of the ENVI Committee on 9 June 2023