2024-10-14

Status

The dataset is experimental and the format of the tables may change in the future.

License

The HowTheyVote.eu data is made available under an open license. If you use data published by HowTheyVote.eu please make sure you’ve read the license terms and provide proper attribution.

Tables

members.csv

Each row represents a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Column	Type	Description
id	integer	Member ID as used by the MEP Directory.
first_name	string	First name
last_name	string	Last name
country_code	string	3-letter ISO-3166-1 code
date_of_birth	date (optional)	Date of birth
email	string (optional)	Email address
facebook	string (optional)	Facebook profile URL
twitter	string (optional)	Twitter account URL

countries.csv

Each row represents an EU member state.

Column	Type	Description
code	string	3-letter ISO-3166-1 code
iso_alpha_2	string	2-letter ISO-3166-1 code
label	string	Label as published by the Publications Office of the European Union

groups.csv

Each row represents a political group in the European Parliament.

Column	Type	Description
code	string	Unique identifier for the political group
official_label	string	Official label as published by the Publications Office of the European Union
label	string	Label based on the official label. Prefixes and suffixes such as "Group" are removed for clarity.
short_label	string	Short label or abbreviation

group_memberships.csv

Each row represents a membership of an MEP in a political group.

MEPs can change their political group during the term, i.e., each MEP is part of one or more political groups over the course of a term. Non-attached MEPs are a member of the NI group.

Column	Type	Description
member_id	integer	Member ID
group_code	string	Group code
term	integer	Parliamentary term
start_date	date	Start date
end_date	date (optional)	End date. If empty, the MEP the membership is still active.

votes.csv

Each row represents a roll-call vote in plenary.

Column	Type	Description
id	integer	Vote ID
timestamp	dateTime	Date and time of the vote
display_title	string (optional)	Title that can be used to refer to the vote. In most cases, this is the title published in the roll-call vote results. If the title in the roll-call vote results is empty, this falls back to the procedure title.
reference	string (optional)	Reference to a plenary document such as a report or a resolution
description	string (optional)	Description of the vote as published in the roll-call vote results
is_main	boolean	Whether this vote is a main vote. We classify certain votes as main votes based on the text description in the voting records published by Parliament. For example, if Parliament has voted on amendments, only the vote on the text as a whole is classified as a main vote. Certain votes such as votes on the agenda are not classified as main votes. This is not an official classification by the European Parliament and there may be false negatives.
is_featured	boolean	Whether this vote is featured. Currently, a vote is featured when we have found an official press release about the vote published by the European Parliament Newsroom. However, this is subject to change.
procedure_reference	string (optional)	Procedure reference as listed in the Legislative Observatory
procedure_title	string (optional)	Title of the legislative procedure as listed in the Legislative Observatory

member_votes.csv

Each row represents how an MEP voted in a roll-call vote.

Column	Type	Description
vote_id	integer	Vote ID
member_id	integer	Member ID
position	string	Vote position. One of FOR, AGAINST, ABSTENTION if the MEP participated in the vote or DID_NOT_VOTE if the MEP wasn’t present for the vote. We currently do not differentiate between MEPs who did not vote with or without an excuse.
country_code	string	Country code
group_code	string (optional)	Group code. This references the political group that the MEP was part of on the day of the vote. This is not necessarily the MEP’s current political group.