A new online tool is shining a light on the attendance records of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), amid growing public frustration over transparency and accountability in EU institutions.
Despite earning nearly €11,000 a month before tax — about €8,500 net — some MEPs are not always present for their parliamentary duties. Now, citizens can see who shows up to vote and who doesn’t, thanks to WhereIsMyMEP.eu, a website created by French-based developer Alex Monetón.
“There is a lot of public information in the EU, but it is incredibly difficult to find it,” Monetón told The Brussels Times. “In general, I do not think we have enough transparency at the EU level.”
Monetón, who lives in Nice, said the idea stemmed from his struggle to find information about his own local council. “If it is already this hard in a small city like Nice, then what happens at the EU level? Do we really know what is going on?”
While the data on WhereIsMyMEP.eu is drawn entirely from the European Parliament’s public website, Monetón said it took “time and dedication” to extract and organize it. His site features a leaderboard ranking MEPs by attendance, listing how often they participated in votes, their countries, and political affiliations.
“The only information citizens have about whether an MEP showed up or not is whether they voted,” he said. “Voting means showing up.” Abstentions count as present, while not voting counts as absent.
According to Monetón’s findings, more than 400 MEPs attended at least 90% of sessions, with the top performers present nearly 100% of the time. “Interestingly, six of the top 10 were French,” he noted. “At the same time, three of the bottom 10 were German, which I found pretty shocking.”
Under European Parliament rules, MEPs absent for at least half of plenary sessions in a given year must reimburse 50% of their general expenditure allowance. Those who attend less than half of a day’s votes see their daily allowance cut in half, according to a 2024 internal notice.
Monetón said that while most lawmakers have strong attendance records, some were notably absent. “The MEP with the lowest score was only there 18% of the time,” he said. “It’s not a criticism, but I’m surprised. They don’t show up, and I think we deserve to know why.”
He added that certain absences are justified. A Dutch MEP, for example, contacted him to explain she had been undergoing treatment for breast cancer. “So I removed her from the board,” Monetón said, noting that European Parliament President Roberta Metsola does not vote but is nonetheless present.
The European Parliament said it does not comment on external websites but confirmed that MEPs manage their mandates independently. “Their presence in the hemicycle can vary as they might have concurring activities — political group meetings, working group meetings, national delegation meetings or even committee meetings — in parallel to some plenary debates,” its press service told The Brussels Times.
The Parliament does not keep a single consolidated attendance list for MEPs, but individual registers of plenary and committee sessions are publicly available for each sitting day.
A broader debate
The launch of WhereIsMyMEP.eu taps into a wider conversation about how transparent and accountable EU institutions should be as Europe faces political fragmentation and skepticism about Brussels’ democratic legitimacy.
While many MEPs maintain solid records of attendance, the project underscores persistent concerns that the workings of the EU’s only directly elected body remain opaque to ordinary voters. Analysts say the site’s growing attention may pressure the Parliament to make attendance data easier to access — and prompt citizens to scrutinize more closely how their representatives use their mandates between elections.
Read more via The Brussels Times
