Comment by znort_

taking vacation and switching off is actually the sane thing for a person to do. the problem is that there is no provision for your post being covered while on vacation, and it's a problem in the enterprise/organization.

imo that a representative of the people misses a vote should just not be acceptable under any circumstances.

that's of course if we had to take "democracy" as an actually meaningful representation of the people. this was a cheap political maneuver to get a bill passed. happens everywhere. they would have gotten the bill through by any other means anyway.

that would be in an ideal democracy, though, in reality european parlamentarians don't even draft laws, they are only able to sign off on laws drafted by shady appointees of an equally shady and largely unelected (by the people) comission, take it or leave it. that, photo ops and declarations is their whole job, it shouldn't be too complicated to have a fucking substitute when on vacation.