The European Parliament is the only multinational parliament of its size in the world and its MEPs have been directly elected every five years since 1979. Of the 495 million EU citizens, approximately 375 million will be invited to decide who will represent them for the new five year term between 2009 and 2014.

I have noticed posters going up recently with names of politicians (most of whom I am not familiar with) looking for my number 1 vote. I wonder if most of the general public has any idea what the EU Parliment does, or in fact if they could name a few of the MEP's. How many can you name, 10, 2, 1, none ?

This brings me to the main question I have, are we entirely over represented, over regulated and does this representation and regulation help us or hinder us. After all we have local politicians, national politicians and european politicians. The vast majority of whom I only hear about just before the elections.

What do you think?