Some 298 million voters in the 15 member-states of the EU will be eligible to vote in the direct elections to the European Parliament on June 10th, 11th and 12th.
They will elect 626 members to a body whose role has been dramatically enhanced in recent months, in part by the Amsterdam Treaty's extension of its legislative powers and in part by the Parliament's adroit use of its powers to extract commitments from the European Commission and the member-states, even forcing the resignation of the Commission in March.
MEPs are paid salaries equal to those of their national public representatives - £38,000 a year in the Irish case, £92,000 for Italians - but are compensated by an expenses system which has been much criticised. They move at huge cost between their constituencies and Strasbourg and Brussels, where Parliament sits.
Most EU legislation is now passed under the system of "codecision", by which MEPs and the Council of Ministers share a veto. The result is a complex shuttling of legislation between the Council of Ministers and the Parliament.
Failure to agree legislation leads to formal "conciliation", where MEPs and ministers negotiate directly over its final shape. However, member-states are now increasingly willing to accept significant amendments by the Parliament, a reality reflected in a huge commercial and special interest lobbying industry concentrated around the Parliament.
A recent report by the city of Brussels put the number of jobs related directly to lobbying or commercial monitoring of the EU at: interest groups (2,380), law firms (1,311), and representatives of regions and cities (632).
MEPs also have ultimate control over EU spending, a significant power used to support programmes which ministers have been willing to discard, such as the newly-rescued urban programme for inner city renewal. Refusal to ratify budgets or the discharge of accounts have been important parliamentary levers.
The right to call officials, Commissioners and even the president of the European Central Bank to account at its increasingly expert committees is also a significant political power.
The casting of the cold light of parliamentary scrutiny on the activities of the Commission has important effects on policy, e.g., shaping EU food safety policy through its exhaustive hearings and report on the handling of the BSE crisis.
And, although the treaty provides only for MEPs' right to ratify or sack the full Commission, individual hearings in September will put the spotlight on each of the candidates.
Many MEPs argue that the right to sack individual incompetent or corrupt Commissioners should rest with Parliament but others say it should rest with the President of the Commission. The issue is likely to be one of the next term's major battlegrounds.
Parliament's higher profile has led to a greater willingness of senior politicians to put themselves forward for election. Former prime or senior ministers are no longer rare.
Mr Bob Fitzhenry, press officer of the European People's Party (EPP), says the group is already contemplating with some misgivings the need to find suitably high-profile positions for all the "stars" which are expected to be elected in June. You cannot, after all, consign a former president of the Commission to the obscurity of the backbenches. But then, as he says, there simply are not enough posts in the group's gift to go around.
Jobs in Parliament and in the groups, from presidencies of committees to the leadership of delegations, are allocated under the complicated D'Hondt system. This reflects the parliamentary strength of each political group and each national delegation inside it.
While the election of a solitary Irish member of a group to the group leadership, as in Mr Pat Cox's case, might suggest that the domination of national groups may be starting to wane, Mr Cox admits his group is not typical. Such an appointment would still be impossible in either the Socialists or the EPP, where the grip of the big national delegations ensures that the plum jobs go to the larger member-states.
However, members of most groups insist there has been increased discipline within groups in voting on the chamber's floor. The pay-off is more clout in intergroup negotiations if a group can promise to deliver its full number of votes.
The influence of national governments is still here - in some ways more than ever as capitals have begun to appreciate Parliament's evolution. The socialists, in particular, are accused of being prisoners of the Downing Street machine.
Mr Cox acknowledges, for example, that the intervention of the Spanish and Portuguese governments with members of his group secured Mr Jacques Santer's nomination in 1994.
The new responsibilities have also put strains on MEPs from states like Ireland where the electoral system is particularly demanding. As Mr John Cushnahan points out it is one thing for an Italian MEP, electorally secure on the upper reaches of a regional party list, and another for a rural Irish MEP who knows every first preference must be won.
This is not helped, he adds, echoing the complaints of every MEP, by the media, which, they say, still refuse to cover the Parliament as a serious legislature.
As for putting their own house in order now they have put manners on the Commission, there is unanimity across the parties. Some might say such individual enthusiasm for reform has still failed to manifest itself in a willingness to do away with expenses abuses and appointments patronage.
