the embodiment of democracy

Now you could say that it was our own fault for not taking euro-elections seriously but the public know all too well that there is no real point in sending MEPs at great expense when they are structurally outnumbered. and cannot in any way unite to block legislation. The chances of us seeing anything like a democratic result from the European Parliament are nil unless you buy into the fiction that there is an EU demos that transcends national concerns (as if!).

So what you are actually seeing here is not the embodiment of democracy but rather what happens when you have nothing even approaching democracy. These people have no power and no mandate from the public. The consequences of this are clear for all to see. A self-reinforcing idiocracy that needs to be supervised by functionaries appointed by the Commission.

In this the EU is acutely aware of the so-called democratic deficit and this keeps all the EU think tanks scratching their heads as to how to bridge that gap. How do they make the profoundly undemocratic a democracy. It's a quest for the holy grail. Nobody concerned has ever seen it, nobody knows what it looks like, and wouldn't recognise it if they saw it.

Like most things, you have to go back to basics and ask what the European Parliament is actually for. Since the EU is a legislative entity, the parliament is notionally the people's line of defence to prevent laws they do not want. If it works then it's a democracy, if it doesn't, then it isn't.

For it to work it would require an adequate means of early warning so that interested parties knew what was on the legislative agenda, and for members concerned to have the necessary collective powers to block on behalf of the people they represent. It fails on both counts - and since the public will never really embrace the EU as their government there will never be parliamentary legitimacy.