Abstract

Using a database constructed - and interviews conducted - for a wider project on the impact of social background and institutional socialisation in the roles adopted by first-time MEPs, this paper provide an overall picture of the previous experience and demographic profiles of the 2004 cohort of new member state MEPs.
The authors show that, broadly speaking, they are even better educated, more politically experienced, and drawing more from the right-wing of the political spectrum, than their counterparts from the old member states.
The authors also present a typology of the roles that the MEPs see themselves as taking and discuss how this differs between old and new member state MEPs.