Truth about Brussels and the EU

Few know that 70 per cent of UK law originates in the shiny, modern buildings of Brussels.

And the ten MEPs who represent the people of Sussex and the South East share unparalleled anonymity.

It's a funny kind of democracy as Claire Truscott discovered on a trip to Brussels.

I jump off the Eurostar, take in the scaffold-covered mess of my surrounds and soak up the sugarcoated air wafting from every street corner's waffle van. Ah, Brussels - home to chocolate, great beer and the grey, glossy splendour of the European Union - an island in the democratic wilderness.

The Parliament building is an icon of European harmonisation. Flags from every nation line its corridors, languages from every corner fill its cafes and 730 MEPs do battle over the future of Spanish bull-fighting, cherries and the banning of barometers.

Ten of our own elected representatives join the throng. Yet while they commute back and forth from Brussels to constituency offices across the South East, most of us are completely oblivious.

While Sussex MPs cause waves, South East MEPs barely make ripples on our political radar.

Yet with so much of our legislation being made across the Channel should we not hold European officials to the same standard of account as Members of Parliament?

Conservative MEP Richard Ashworth who represents us and lived in Hastings for 35 years, thinks so. He said: "We have a problem projecting what goes on here. By definition what we do tends not to be local." There are, he agrees, those who use that anonymity to their advantage.

As I sip espresso in a parliamentary caf I see a handful of MEPs - a bloke who was once in EastEnders (Michael Cashman), one from Crossroads (Liz Lynn), Mussolini's granddaughter, and a handful of ex-UK MPs who have come out to graze on a euro salary equivalent to the sterling one they left behind (£60,277 from November).

At a minimum they must come to Brussels once every four months and some do just that.

Mr Ashford acknowledges the anonymity: "If we want to sit on our hands and do nothing we get the same money." He points out the difference between electing him versus a Member of the British Parliament.

"People don't vote for me personally.

They vote for the party. I'm elected on a list. It's a message my colleagues would do well to remember,"

he declares.

But, as Green MEP Caroline Lucas points out, that's a bit like having your cake and eating it. "We use our faces to win elections so we can't have it both ways," she says, "My greatest fear was standing for re-election in 2004 and people saying who are you?' We have such a responsibility to humanise these institutions which are so removed and complicated."

They try a range of methods to increase their presence at the constituency level but it's a tall order. For starters there are six million people in the South East constituency, equivalent to about 80 UK constituencies.

Then there's the fact that most of them are in Brussels five days in seven. Ms Lucas employs outreach workers part-time to deal with Sussex residents.

Mr Ashworth attends a host of meetings on Friday afternoons and Saturdays. Another prominent eurosceptic in Sussex, UKIP leader Nigel Farage from Lyminster, says he hosts the largest number of constituency meetings of any MEP.

After coffee I head for the public gallery of the hemicircle chamber for a parliamentary plenary session.

There's no denying this is an awesome spectacle. I don my headphones and survey the multi-linguistic, multicultural, multi-political body which held its first direct elections as recently as 1979.

A little Spanish humour starts off proceedings, speedily translated into English through my headphones.

Channel-hopping reveals the same chuckle in each of the languages including Suomi.

But down to business. On today's agenda for the mini-plenary we have animal welfare, regulations on sugars and sat-nav systems. Directives and regulations (laws) and resolutions and statements (all mouth no trousers) are agreed here and sent to the Council of Ministers for the final nod or shake of the head.

These days the parliament has an increasing say in the laws of the EU as many are agreed by co-decision or assent (parliament must agree) as opposed to consultation (parliament just a talking-shop).

It becomes quickly obvious that most MEPs in the room don't have a clue what's going on. Many are reading their papers, doing the crossword and nearly everyone is voting according to a piece of paper given to them by their party whip (you're saying yes to cherries, no to bulls etc).

Of course most of the time they are not sitting in this chamber. It is used probably 25 times a year, while the rest of the year these meetings are held in Strasbourg as a favour to the French. It's a sore point among most of the MEPs who agree that spending 200 million euros a year to transport the EU cross-country six times a year is a frightful waste. I am taken to the Members' restaurant for lunch by MEP Richard Ashworth, an ex-farmer who used to be chair of governors at Plumpton College near Lewes.

Unlike his party leader he is cautiously pro-EU. He says much of the bad press is either false or skewed.

"There is an unrelenting tide of straight bananas (they're diseased), easy copy for journalists and spoonfed middle England," he says.

While he agrees there are too many laws made in the EU: "There are no letters in my mailbag saying there are too many. People who write are outraged that there isn't a rule against something."

Then there was the council which blamed rising beach hut rents on EU human rights legislation as a PR exercise and the story about bombay mix being renamed mumbai mix which was made up by bored journalists.

Instead he and Caroline Lucas tell me about a few cases they have taken up for Sussex residents. There are the Orams from Hove whose UK home was threatened in a dispute over their holiday house in Turkish-controlled Cyprus. Mr Ashworth also recalls a man involved in an accident on the M25 involving a Spanish lorry driver.

So when it comes to citizens advice bureau - European branch, MEPs are the place to turn.

Ms Lucas in turn has had a visit from the family of Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Deghayes, from Saltdean, and went to see the US Ambassador in Brussels.

Back to lunch and a survey of the room sees a number of recognisable faces, including Robert Kilroy-Silk.

As I tackle Mr Ashworth on bullfighting (me animal rights, he national rights), we are approached by another South East MEP, Nirj Deva: "We have reduced British politics to dealing with police, schools and hospitals. He (Richard) is a far more important man in Sussex than any of these MPs and nobody knows him."

As an ex-farmer and now the party budgetary spokesman Mr Ashworth is keen to point out that he is only one on a committee of 25 discussing the common agricultural policy, and the European Commission and Council are also important, but the point remains.

About 90 per cent of environmental laws governing the UK are made here.

Mr Ashworth says the EU should be restrained to deal with only those issues which cannot be taken by national states. Ms Lucas believes it should stick to the environment, human rights and social standards.

Nigel Farage thinks it should sack itself altogether. The leader of UKIP spent 22 years as a commodities trader before coming to Brussels on a sabotage mission. He says his sole aim as an MEP is to "not be here anymore".

He said: "It's not for British taxpayers to subsidise this enormous waste of money. I can't make it better.

Nobody can.

"Every single prime minister has said they will reform it but it's Walter Mitty-speak. This is just Second World War idealism."

He's right in some respects. The European economy is not doing well under the single currency and Britain isn't doing too well in the single market.

Laws passed in Brussels will take about two years to be enacted in the UK, hardly the seamless force for good needed in a globalised world.

The Government pays millions into European coffers every year, only for the same funds to make their way through European agencies and back to local authorities to spend on projects in Brighton, Crawley and Hastings.

Brighton and Hove, Lewes and Adur, have just been struck off the list of places eligible for business grants under the European Union's "assisted areas" scheme.

Just one more reason to question what we get from the deal. The answer in Brighton and Hove is £35 million since April 1997. That's how much the city has received in funding.

The money has helped fight deprivation in the city, getting people back to work and improving the lives of older people in Brighton and Hove.

And although the majority of us don't really know what goes on in English, let alone Suomi, some do.

Caroline Lucas' mailbag is full of letters from the Women's Institute wanting tighter regulations on chemicals.

Richard Ashworth's inbox is full of anger about seal culling.

On some issues at least, we are paying attention. I bid my European friends au revoir, buy some Belgian beer and chocolate and board my Eurostar, ready to share the fruits of my European experience.