|
|
During a Facebook chat, Mr Duff stressed changes were needed to increase the number of people voting in the European elections: "Voters need to see that a real choice is being made at the elections between people and parties and ideas. We do real stuff in the European Parliament and we need to get this message out."
He was very clear about what would change with the next European elections: "The European political parties are going to fight each other properly for the first time - with candidates for the post of Commission president and political programmes which address the REAL issues".
One Facebook fan asked if he thought the number of MEPs was too high. Mr Duff responded: "Europe is a very large place. Over 500 million people need at least 750 MEPs to work for them."
When asked if a woman could be the next Commission or Parliament president, he said: "Yes, a German one called Angela".
Mr Duff proposes several improvements to the current electoral process such as adding European political parties to the ballot paper and getting national political parties to tell people which European political party they belong to and which candidate they support for Commission president. MEPs will vote on his recommendations during the July plenary.
Full text of the chat (Facebook account required)