Welcome to EuropeWeek! In the final run-up to the elections to the European Parliament, I’m going to be blogging mainly on the topic of Europe.

I’ve decided to launch my own little campaign because in Britain, at least, the debate over Europe is farcical at best and dangerous at worst. Hopefully, this website can become a space to talk intelligently about Europe for just a little while.

Considering that we’ve had about six weeks of campaigning, you probably recycled all your election material long ago. Don’t worry about it, it was mostly junk.

The real need for this is, as I see it, that the British don’t take these elections seriously. On the part of political parties, we have some using the campaign as a dry-run for the impending General Election, others trying to capitalise from the MPs’ Expenses debacle (I have something to say on this, but I’m sick of the whole thing for the moment) and other parties just engaging in old fashioned nostalgia for the Empire.

Then, when it comes to the public, so few seem to have any idea what the European Union is about, for or even does, let alone the European Parliament. How many voters will ‘protest’ by voting for (some deserving, some not) fringe parties? Should I ask how many will be voting against parties, particularly the Government?

So, I hope you’ll join me in the debate this week, please leave your thoughts and comments.

Please send this to all your friends and colleagues too.