A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to the European Parliament. The name of MEPs differ in different languages, with terms such as europarliamentarian or eurodeputy being common in Romance language-speaking areas.
When the European Parliament was first established, MEPs were appointed by member states from members of their own national parliament. Since 1979, however, MEPs have been elected by direct universal suffrage. Each member state establishes their own way of electing their MEPs and in some states the electoral system has changed over time and across regions. All now use one or another form of proportional representation. For a list of the current members see Members of the European Parliament 2009–2014.
Read more about Member Of The European Parliament: Election of MEPs, MEPs Within The Parliament, The Job of An MEP, Powers, Payment and Privileges, Election of Non-nationals, Observers
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“There are several natural phenomena which I shall have to have explained to me before I can keep on going as a resident member of the human race. One is the metamorphosis which hats and suits undergo exactly one week after their purchase, whereby they are changed from smart, intensely becoming articles of apparel into something children use when they want to “dress up like daddy.””
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“When I reach the shades at last it will no doubt astonish Satan to discover, on thumbing my dossier, that I was a member of the Y.M.C.A.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they choose and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society: to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)
“A Parliament is that to the Commonwealth which the soul is to the body.... It behoves us therefore to keep the facility of that soul from distemper.”
—John Pym (1584–1643)