Attendance rules already exist but are fragmented
Attendance is not an unregulated field. The National Assembly already provides for deductions after repeated committee absences; the Senate also has a mechanism linked to specified attendance, participation and voting duties. Reform therefore improves an existing regime rather than inventing one. [1][2]
Turning internal rules into a legible obligation
The main legal vehicle lies in each chamber’s Rules of Procedure, which are subject to Constitutional Council review. The rule must respect freedom of the parliamentary mandate and distinguish culpable absence from official missions, illness, maternity, serious family events and representation duties. [1][2][3]
- Define attendance duties
- Record official missions and justified absences
- Establish a breach under a public rule
- Apply a proportionate appealable deduction
- Publish aggregate evidence
Measuring work without equating presence with usefulness
The measure becomes credible if it defines a public core of obligations: solemn votes, committees of which the member is part, formally assigned missions and standardised justification. Sanctions should follow objective findings, be proportionate and allow rapid appeal. A public dashboard should distinguish chamber, committee, mission and constituency work. [1][2]
Why sanctions are not savings
The €150 million figure should not be booked as a saving. A deduction is primarily a behavioural sanction, and its revenue falls precisely when the rule works. The proper indicators are compliance with obligations, unjustified absences and processing time, not a revenue target. [1][2]
Avoiding presenteeism and arbitrariness
An overly mechanical rule would reward presenteeism and penalise field or scrutiny work outside the chamber. An overly flexible rule would be cosmetic. The reform therefore needs a limited list of measurable duties, public excuse categories and a consistent procedure for comparable cases. [3]
What must be demonstrated before retaining the 150 million euros per year target
Attendance rules should measure parliamentary work, not just physical presence
Attendance must start from each chamber’s rules and from the fact that parliamentary work takes place in several settings. Missing a plenary sitting is not equivalent to an unjustified absence from a committee on which a member serves; conversely, an official mission, inquiry, delegation or representative duty can legitimately take a member elsewhere. The standing orders of the National Assembly and Senate are therefore the correct baseline. [1] [2] Any stricter regime should list the events that count, recognised exemptions and the appeal process before it attaches a financial sanction.
A credible indicator must not reward members merely for optimising physical presence. It should combine factual measures such as participation in required committee work, recorded votes when the member is not officially prevented, reports or inquiries assigned to the member, hearings and formal scrutiny duties. The purpose is not to grade political opinions or legislative output; it is to make a minimum level of effective mandate performance enforceable. Public data should therefore be structured around date, body, attendance status, recognised reason for absence and any resulting deduction.
The financial effect must remain secondary to the institutional objective. A deduction reduces expenditure only when it is actually imposed; it is not a structural saving comparable with removing a permanent budget line. If attendance improves, receipts from sanctions may fall, which would represent institutional success rather than failure. The primary dashboard should therefore track participation and scrutiny quality, with deductions reported separately. Otherwise the system would perversely appear to perform better when more parliamentarians breach the rules.
Sanction absence without confusing attendance with parliamentary work
A credible attendance rule needs a taxonomy of obligations. Missing a formal vote, a committee on which an MP sits, an official mission or a late-night sitting does not have the same cause or impact. A single attendance score would invite gaming: appearing for the events that are counted while neglecting less visible but useful work. Each member’s mandatory duties should therefore be defined in advance, the counting method published and a review process provided for illness, official duties and serious family circumstances. A financial penalty should follow a qualified unjustified absence, not the automatic output of a sensor or sign-in sheet.
Public reporting can also be more informative than a league table of “good” and “bad” legislators. Separate indicators can cover required attendance, voting, committee activity, reports produced and institutional responsibilities. That allows readers to distinguish physical presence from contribution to parliamentary work. A review after the first year should examine unintended effects: attendance being shifted toward highly counted events, administrative burdens from evidence requests, or less constituency work. The reform succeeds only if it improves availability without turning Parliament into a time-clock system disconnected from its constitutional tasks.
Turn attendance into a measurable rule rather than a symbolic penalty
An attendance policy is credible only if it distinguishes avoidable absence from duties that are themselves part of parliamentary work. A plenary sitting, a committee meeting, an official mission, a delegation assignment or a medical situation cannot be treated alike. The system should therefore define a public classification of attendance and absence, with evidence rules, a correction period and an appeal procedure. The aim is not to manufacture a daily media league table, but to make participation obligations verifiable without discouraging constituency or scrutiny work performed outside the chamber.
The financial scale should be stress-tested before it is written into the rules. A penalty that is too small becomes decorative; an automatic one can create perverse incentives, favouring physical presence over substantive preparation. The impact assessment should simulate several profiles: a member highly present in plenary but inactive in committee, a rapporteur working away from plenary, a member facing long-term illness, and one repeatedly absent without justification. A sound system distinguishes these cases transparently, preserves due process and publishes aggregate evidence allowing Parliament to test whether the rule actually improves participation.
Common audit method: double-counting controls, transition costs and budget reconciliation are centralised in the versioned budget-methodology register. For measure 1.04, those rules apply only to the flows and risks documented on this page; no saving is booked without executed baseline spending, an identifiable base and transferred costs deducted.
Open the technical appendix: evidence required before validating the costing
| Stage | Expected evidence | Timing | Treatment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zero baseline | Executed expenditure, headcount, contracts, allowances, property and directly related resources | Before legislation | Publish |
| Avoidable cost base | Lines that genuinely cease, with date and legal basis | Impact assessment | Justify |
| Transition | Mobility, compensation, redistricting, IT, contracts and transfers | Year 1 | Separate from recurring |
| Transferred costs | Expenditure taken over by another administration or tier | Years 1–2 | Deduct |
| Net result | Recurring saving on a like-for-like basis with confidence level | After 12 stable months | Audit |