A costly, unloved place ripe for the disaffected

From Stockholm to Sardinia, Waterford to Warsaw, a noisy and eclectic band of nationalists and eurosceptics are on the campaign trail hoping to unseat their mainstream rivals in the European Parliament.

Dutch anti-Islamists, Hungarian nationalists, Italian separatists and an Irish-backed anti-Lisbon Treaty party are all clamouring for seats when Europe goes to the polls between June 4 and 7.

And a combination of dismally low voter turnout and the economic downturn looks likely to play into their hands.

"It's a worrying trend," says Urszula Gacek, a centre-right Polish MEP whose country is home to several arch-conservative Catholic parties and is headed by a eurosceptic president, Lech Kaczynski.

"The extremists are better at mobilising their voters, by playing on citizens' fears and talking up the need for protectionism and the closing of borders."

Many, like Ms Gacek, view the possible arrivals from the extreme fringes of the political landscape with trepidation, fretting that their new fellow parliamentarians will attempt to hobble the workings of the institution to which they are seeking election.

One prospect is the establishment of a new eurosceptic faction, thanks to the British Conservatives' much-criticised plan to abandon the powerful centre-right, umbrella-grouping European People's Party.

The Conservatives are now reportedly seeking to team with Irish businessman Declan Ganley's Libertas, a pan-European movement set up with the ambition of derailing the Lisbon Treaty.

More worrying is the threat from the far-right, which could well include the British National Party (BNP), which is poised to win at least one seat and has been seeking "greater co-operation between European nationalists".

"It's really ironic that these groups have decided to go European, given that they are all campaigning against the EU," says the Green Party's co-president, Monica Frassoni.

But she points out that these parties are so rooted in domestic politics that Romanian and Hungarian groups campaigning on an anti-Roma gypsy ticket are unlikely to get into bed with, for instance, the Vlaams Belang, which wants independence for Flanders.

"I can't see how they will organise themselves into a credible new faction given the complete disarray and isolation they've faced before."

A new party of far-right groups, Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty, collapsed spectacularly within weeks of its creation in 2007, when Italy's Allessandra Mussolini hurled verbal abuse at her "scum" Romanian colleagues, and Poles were left fuming over Austrian mutterings about the need to change the Polish-German border - a far cry from the cosy European spirit that has seen even British members grow used to kissing their foreign colleagues on both cheeks.

"Inevitably it all dissolved into a shambles and now they will never make up the numbers they need to create a new political entity," says Andrew Duff, a British Liberal MEP, referring to recent changes to triple to 28 the minimum number of politicians needed to form a political grouping. Only a group can wield power at the parliament, he says.

"Independent members count for nothing, which is why the risk posed by these extremists is in reality so insignificant."

At the other end of the scale, the Parliament risks being seen as a depository for outlandish wannabes or failed has-beens. France's fallen political star, the former Justice Minister Rachida Dati (UMP), can at least boast Cabinet experience, unlike the string of female soap-opera starlets and models being fielded by Italy's Silvio Berlusconi for his centre-right party, to the outrage of his wife.

In Britain, former The Apprentice star and Met Office worker Katie Hopkins announced she will stand as the sole candidate for the Katie Olivia Hopkins Independent Party in Exeter. "It makes us look like a bunch of amateurs," said one Dutch MEP.

Although the Parliament has massively increased its powers since it became a democratically elected chamber three decades ago and now wields its zeal for regulation wherever it can, the world's only transnational Parliament still leaves most Europeans cold: two-thirds say they know little about what it does and only one-third plan to vote next month, one poll found.

Its MEPs like to blame the media for the plummeting public interest, accusing it of failing to report on its achievements in swaying legislation on issues as diverse as working hours for employees, EU environmental targets and mobile phone roaming charges.

Instead, the assembly's reputation is frequently dogged by scandals over MEP allowances and the costly idiosyncrasy of being the only Parliament in the world with two houses.

MEPs and armies of assistants and translators leave the gleaming steel-and-glass hemisphere in Brussels once a month to travel several hundred kilometres to Strasbourg for a four-day session in a time-honoured practice branded the "travelling circus", "Euro gravy train" or any variation of the two.

The monthly move to France as well as the upkeep of a state-of-the-art premises which stands mostly empty costs European taxpayers about $455 million a year. Even if Strasbourg's restaurants buzz with the nightly patronage of the MEPs during sessions, many elected representatives don't even bother to show up.

Others seethe with frustration at the Parliament's reluctance to self-reform.

"In the past, Strasbourg was a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation. Now it's a symbol of waste," says Alexander Alvaro, a German Liberal MEP who wants to scrap the Strasbourg location.

But there are signs the European Parliament is getting the message. New rules on allowances will curb some of the excess. And if Ireland passes the Lisbon Treaty in a second referendum, Strasbourg will be gain a greater say over justice, immigration and foreign policy, rather than wasting its breath on passing resolutions on matters beyond its remit.

Ironically, the europhobes and extremists may find themselves wielding real power rather than just disrupting hand-wringing debates on the situation in Burma or the disappearance of the brown bear.

- INDEPENDENT