EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - With six days to go to elections, French socialists and Libertas have begun using sex to attract attention, while a rock and roll controversy has erupted in the UK.

The youth wing of the Party of European Socialists (PES) in the Haute-Loire district in France has released an online video of a couple in bed with the slogan "Need a Change?"

The PES video suggests the parliament is currently as dull as sex with socks on

The pair first make love sluggishly to classical music, the man wearing socks and taking a condom from an EU blue-and-gold stars wrapper. In the second scene, the socks come off, he takes a condom from a red, PES-labeled wrapper and makes love vigorously to electronic music.

The pan-EU Libertas party in London on Thursday (28 May) hired topless model Amy Diamond to stand in front of Westminster painted in EU colours (gold stars on nipples) with a placard saying "We Demand Exposure." Libertas needs all the help it can get in the UK, where it is polling at less than 1 percent.

The European Parliament is distinctive for its very strong culture of compromise. In order to have pull with the Commission and Council, MEPs seek to make agreements before voting, and traditional political divisions are glossed over.

At the end of 2006: MEPs brought one of the most heated exchanges ever to take place in the European parliament to a close, when they voted for an amended version of the "Bolkestein" directive on the liberalization of services. On that day, which will not be forgotten, the French socialists broke rank with their allies to oppose the text proposed by one of their German counterparts. The outcome of that battle illustrates one of the little known aspects of the European Parliament: it is an institution with a very strong "culture of compromise," which often has little to do with national traditions, but can be swayed by ulterior motives.

There are many reasons for this inherent duality. The parliament rules on a wide variety of technical issues, such as fuel quality, telecommunications regulations, and safety standards, which, at the end of the day, only elicit strong opinions from the battalions of lobbyists in the European quarter of Brussels.

My colleague Jonny Dymond has left the office for a month with a lot of wires and a long-suffering producer, but that does not mean he is ever far from my heart, or indeed my inbox and he e-mailed me this extract from David Cameron's speech the other day:

"We will therefore hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, pass a law requiring a referendum to approve any further transfers of power to the EU, negotiate the return of powers, and require far more detailed scrutiny in Parliament of EU legislation, regulation and spending."

"Is this a big shift of policy?" the eagle-eyed trans-European traveller wondered. After all, up until now the Conservatives have only suggested there would be a referendum if Ireland voted "no" (or the Czechs or Germans failed to complete ratification). To hold one regardless would be new, and big.

But I was wary, simply because I had recently wasted a Saturday morning writing an excited blog a few weeks ago based on a news release from William Hague's office, saying much the same thing. When I read the full speech, caveats and all, I had to bin the blog. So I duly read Mr Cameron's pronouncement in full. There are no qualifications.

Many have a hard time finding enthusiasm for the European Parliament elections. But they should pay more attention to the colorful array of candidates on offer. From millionaires to machos, blue bloods to bombshells, next week's vote has it all.

Silvio Berlusconi, the media mogul and Italy's prime minister, wanted to line up some "fresh faces" for the 2009 European parliamentary elections. More specifically, he was thinking of showcasing a host of attractive young women, including professional showgirls and a participant on the Italian version of "Big Brother" known throughout the country for her skimpy outfits. As he saw it, these individuals would bring youth and glamour to his center-right People of Freedom (PdL) party. But then Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, got fed up with his flaunting of young femininity and publicly denounced both him and the "shamelessness of power." So, Berlusconi dropped the plan for running with a whole team of young women.

In the run-up to elections for the European Parliament in June, reporters at SPIEGEL ONLINE in Germany, NRC Handelsblad in the Netherlands and Politiken in Denmark have joined forces to profile attitudes about the election and the EU in each of the 27 member states. Several new interviews will be published each day between now and the end of May.