A nationwide campaign is a lot more expensive than a local one. Thus, in selecting candidates, the parties will tend to either go with failed national politicians or celebrities.

Finland currently has 2 failed ex-PMs, a handful of political deadbeats and a couple of political oddballs. Becoming an MEP is seen by political operators as a consolation prize or sinecure. Or indeed the EU may be seen as a large carpet to sweep political dirt under.

But the most worrying trend is the pressganging of celebrities, who have the required nationwide visibility, but rarely a clue about politics. It is more like jury service. Cost-efficient these celebrities may be, but useful? Even my name has been mentioned, so the barrel is being scraped. Talk about pigeon among the cats...

There is a second structural problem: in order to get EU funding within parliament, and be guaranteed seats on committees, you need to join a group that has at least 20 MEPS from 6 different countries (Rising to 25 this year). There are currently 7 of these different groups (and a few independents). Classifying the myriad national European political parties in just 7 groups makes for some odd bedfellows in these groups.

This makes it a hard sell to the national voters. And that is one of the reasons it is rarely mentioned - at least in Finland.

You can't be me, I'm taken