What are MEPs there to do? (Part 3 - the devil is in the detail)

In a parliament with no majorities, MEPs need to build cross-party and cross-national alliances to get things done ie win votes, promote amendments in Britain's interests and stop amendments which harm Britain's interests.

In fact, when MEPs are doing their job properly it's hard work on practical details.

And practical details are important. For example, by bringing service concessions within the scope of the Public Procurement Directives, far more major contracts across Europe, such as public-private partnerships, will have to be tendered transparently and competitively Europe-wide - a major opportunity for British businesses well used to a generally competitive home market for government contracts. But if you don't understand the Public Procurement Directives, the difference between public contracts and concessions, who you have to get on board to bring about this change (mainly the French, Spanish and Italians in this case) and where they are coming from then you will have not much chance of bringing about this change

Another example...MEPs now have the power to scrutinise the Commission's implementation of EU law through the regulatory procedure with scrutiny, introduced in 2006 into the Comitology process. There are more than 250 Comitology bodies, which in 2006, for example, delivered more than 2500 opinions on planned implementing actions by the Commission.Thus there is plenty of scope for MEPs (particularly those who have specialist knowledge of areas of European law) to engage with the detail of how EU law is implemented.

One thing is certain - and it misses the point about how the European Parliament works - nothing relevant to the work of the European Parliament can be achieved by forming an "official opposition"

Firstly, because, as we have found out over the past 11 years, oppositions can't do much to implement policies or change laws.

Secondly, by sitting in "opposition" you cannot build the coalitions necessary to win key votes.

And there is a more fundamental objection to the idea of "official opposition" in the European Parliament - it implies that the EU has a "government" which of course is not consistent with the idea of an EU as a partnership of nation states....