Prof. Dr Wolfgang Schumann's Library tagged eu-legitimacy →  View Popular

On the positive side, the authors note, enlargement has not destabilised the Parliament's output, nor has it affected the strength of left-right political alignments, which remain cohesive. 

In fact, the Parliament's sixth legislature (2004-2009) has boosted the institution's assertiveness, particularly under the co-decision
 procedure, where Parliament and the European Council share decision-making powers. 

The high cost of efficiency 

However, this new assertiveness has come at a price. In its efforts to streamline decision-making and maintain efficiency, the enlarged EU assembly has moved more decisions to committees and cut down the amount of time for debate between MEPs in the plenary chamber. 

In particular, the massive increase in first-reading agreements (when a legislative act is passed after only one reading in the chamber) gives the impression that "the bulk of political debate takes place behind closed doors, rather than publicly".

In other words, if Parliament "adopts a compromise that is pre-negotiated by the responsible committee, there is little chance of a politicised and controversial debate," which is "crucial to capturing public attention," say the experts. Worse still, it runs the risk of Parliament being perceived as "merely rubber-stamping the Council's decisions". 

Can it be done in Europe

They admit they are not sure what the answer to this question is, with the EU elections taking place across so many countries, involving so many languages and still largely focused on local issues.

Michael Peters, managing director of Euronews, said his organisation was "really curious" about the type of questions it would get, and thought issues such as abortion could become topics debated EU-wide.

The questions themselves, posted via videos on the Euronews website, will be answered either by Euronews journalists themselves, analysts or politicians.