Declaration 23

Below is an analysis of the signatures on Declaration 23 that was done for the US State Dept. and MEP allies.

Declaration 23

408 signed out of 732 MEPs: 55.7%. This was a tremendous accomplishment. As of July 9, 2006, this written declaration was one of only three declarations in 2006 that received enough signatures to be adopted. Twenty-one declarations lapsed for lack of the requisite number of signatures in 2006, and 32 were ongoing. Only one declaration received more signatures (422) than this declaration. In 2005 there were 83 attempted declarations. Only 7 were adopted, and 76 lapsed. Of those adopted, only one received more signatures (424) than 408. This means that in 2005-06, this declaration had the third-highest number of signatures out of a total of 107 declarations (not counting the ongoing declarations as of July 9).

PARTY GROUPS

All party groups except the GUE/NGL (Communists and far left) and the Independence and Democracy Group (euroskeptics) had 50% or more of their members sign. The lack of a majority of IND-DEM signatures can probably be explained by the reluctance of many IND-DEM MEPs to sign written declarations in general, because of their euroskepticism.

EPP/ED: 146 out of 263: 55.6%

PES: 112 out of 201: 55.7%

ALDE: 66 out of 89: 74.2%

Greens: 21 out of 42: 50%

GUE/NGL: 14 out of 41: 34.1%

Non-aligned: 24 out of 37: 64.9%

UEN: 19 out of 30: 63.3%

IND-DEM: 6 out of 29: 20.7%

NATIONALITIES:

In 14 out of 25 nationalities, more than a majority of MEPs signed (12 of the top 14 nationalities had 60% or more signatories). In 18 nationalities, 42% or more of MEPS signed. In only 3 nationalities, less than 1/3 signed. Of the 137 MEPs from the 8 former East Bloc member states, 80 (58.4%) signed.

France: 74 out of 78: 94.9%

Slovenia: 6 out of 7: 85.7%

Cyprus: 5 out of 6: 83.3%

Luxembourg: 5 out of 6: 83.3%

Italy: 64 out of 78: 82.1%

Spain: 42 out of 54: 77.8%

Greece: 18 out of 24: 75%

Estonia: 4 out of 6: 66.7%

Slovakia: 9 out of 14: 64.3%

Lithuania: 8 out of 13: 61.6%

Poland: 33 out of 54: 61.1%

Malta: 3 out of 5: 60%

Belgium: 14 out of 24: 58.3%

Latvia: 5 out of 9: 55.6%

Ireland: 6 out of 13: 46.2%

Hungary: 11 out of 24: 45.8%

Finland: 6 out of 14: 42.9%

Denmark: 6 out of 14: 42.9%

Portugal: 9 out of 24: 37.5%

Netherlands: 10 out of 27: 37%

Germany: 36 out of 99: 36.4%

United Kingdom: 26 out of 78: 33.3%

Czech Republic: 4 out of 24: 16.7%

Austria: 3 out of 18: 16.7%

Sweden: 1 out of 19: 5.3%

Other observations:

Of the 212 female MEPs, 118 (55.7%) signed -- exactly the same percentage as the total number of MEPs who signed.

Slovakia's high percentage of signatures is due to the Slovakian EPP (Anna Zaborska's delegation) -- all 8 signed.

Of the British MEPs who signed, 15 were EPP/ED (out of 27 British EPP/ED), 5 PES, 3 ALDE, 3 from other party groups.

Of the German MEPs who signed, 14 were EPP/ED (28.6% of the German EPP/ED delegation); 7 were PES (30.4% of German PES delegation). 6 of 7 German ALDE signed, and 7 of 13 German Greens (Hiltrud Breyer's delegation) signed.

Twelve of 15 Polish EPP/ED members signed (Jacek Saryusz-Wolski's delegation), and 6 of 10 Polish PES members (Siwiec's delegation); eight of 10 Polish non-aligned members signed (Giertych's delegation).

Five of 12 Portuguese PES members signed (Ana Gomes's delegation).

Four of the 6 Irish signatures were from Irish UEN MEPs (Brian Crowley's delegation).