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.

See NordicStorm's excellent diary for more on the Finnish and international MEP scene: Minority MEPs?

But the most worrying trend is the pressganging of celebrities with nothing to celebrate, 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...

The former MEP Alexander Stubb, (National Coalition Party), now Finland's Foreign Minister, is one of the few Finnish candidates to sink himself whole-heartedly into the EU process and obviously saw it as a career move at a time when the Nat. Coalition Party couldn't offer him the kind of advancement he wanted.

An ex-PM of Finland, Anneli Jäteenmäki, who was forced to resign for spying on the President, is apparently still wandering around Brussels  making no contribution at all - either because she is language-challenged or is using the 'well-paid holiday' in Brussels to plot her comeback in Finland. This disgraced lawyer has enough supporters in up north in reindeer territory to still make political waves.

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.

Here are the current groups:

EPP-ED       284    European People's Party-European Democrats
PES          215    Party of European Socialists
ALDE      103    Allance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
UEN            44    Union of Europe for the Nations
G-EFA        42    European Greens - European Free Alliance
GUE-NGL   41    European United Left-Nordic Green Left
ID            24    Independence/Democracy Group

Another small wrinkle is that the MEPS from the same country sit in Parliament with their MEP group, not with fellow countrypersons. A good thing imo, but something else to have the electorate scratching their heads. The EU is still seen by the majority of voters as somehow being a representation of national interests, and that is why the MEP votes tend to be mid-term punishment of national parties rather than a vote for a political point of view.

This is one of the great challenges that the EU Parliament faces - to move away from national interest toward European interests. I think very few voters really understand that the EU is about redistribution - the rich helping the poor so we can really talk about one Europe - as well as all the worthy goals of protecting citizens by such things as standardization, free movement etc.

I realize I'll be challenged on this, but in my view the EU is built to be inherently socialist ;-)