BCW, one of the world’s leading global communications agencies, today announced the launch of the 2023 EU Influence Index, the findings of which demonstrate that MEPs from centrist groups have the strongest impact on policy outcomes, while MEPs at the extremes of the political spectrum secure higher public visibility via digital and social media.
The EU Influence Index uses a unique data-driven methodology to measure two spheres of influence: parliamentary influence - a policymaker’s ability to impact policy outcomes and public influence - the ability to cultivate visibility and reach audiences via the media and social media.
Analysing parliamentary influence by country, those with a large national delegation from the centre-left to the centre-right (S&D, Renew and EPP) have more impact on shaping policy. Spain (largest S&D delegation) and Germany (largest EPP delegation) are the highest ranked national delegations relative to their share of seats.
Conversely, large national delegations of conservative/far-right parties (ECR and ID) tend to have less impact on policy outcomes. For this reason, Italy (largest ID delegation), Hungary (largest number of non-attached members following the departure of Fidesz from the EPP), and France (second largest ID delegation) rank lower on parliamentary influence, relative to their share of seats.
In terms of public influence, Spain, France, and Malta rank highly relative to the size of their national delegations, given they have a number of MEPs who reach a wide audience. While Malta's score is driven by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, the overall position of France and Spain stems from the extremes of the political spectrum, in particular from far-right conservative MEPs.
Although fewer Female MEPs feature in the top rankings for parliamentary influence, they outperform their male counterparts overall, when considering their respective share of seats. The opposite is true on public influence, where male MEPs secure higher visibility compared to their female counterparts.
“Ahead of the 2024 European elections, it is critical to understand how conversations in the media, and on digital channels, are shaping influence” said Andrew Cecil, CEO of BCW Brussels. “The Influence Index reveals unparalleled insights for anyone looking to understand how the political environment across Europe is evolving and the potential implications for policymaking in a new mandate”.
About the study
The BCW Influence Index uses a unique and proprietary data-driven methodology to measure which European policymakers wield the most influence and offers new insights ahead of the European Parliament elections taking place in 2024.
Influence is measured through two largely independent dimensions:
- Parliamentary influence: a policymaker’s ability to impact legislation, shape the policy agenda, garner support and win votes, and secure and avail themselves of positions of institutional power; and
- Public influence: the ability to cultivate visibility with European citizens, reach audiences online and in the media and shape public conversations.
The BCW Influence Index collates and analyses a broad range of data points based on a defined set of metrics. On average, more than 1 million data points have been collected to determine parliamentary influence and more than 6 million for public influence. These are then combined to provide a single score for parliamentary influence and a single score for public influence using a statistical procedure – the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) - a universally recognised statistical method for calculating indices.
More information, including the full results a detailed description of the methodology, is available at www.bcwinfluenceindex.com
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