MEPs grow fat in Euro wonderland but most of us feel we don’t belong

The European expenses scandal is just symptomatic of a much wider malaise, of course. For 14 years, the EU’s own auditors have refused to sign off on the accounts, so uncertain are they about their reliability. So why, having listed just some of the EU’s many obvious flaws, should you make the effort on Friday?

THIS week’s EU Parliament elections are full of paradoxes. Paradox 1: if some recent opinion polls are to be believed, as many as two-thirds of the 375 million Europeans eligible to vote in this week’s elections will not do so. It’s a damning indictment of an unlovely institution. And yet the parliament has never been more powerful and is, Lisbon depending, set to become even more so.

Paradox 2: turnout in Ireland is set to be higher than in any of the other 26 member states, despite the Irish electorate having most reason to feel the EU institutions are deaf to their wishes.