{"id":31619,"date":"2014-05-21T16:24:18","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T15:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/?p=31619"},"modified":"2014-10-29T12:36:22","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T11:36:22","slug":"jim-murray-who-cares-about-the-european-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/05\/21\/jim-murray-who-cares-about-the-european-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Murray: Who cares about the European Parliament?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2013\/10\/31\/jim-murray-the-emas-efforts-to-widen-access-to-clinical-trial-results\/jim_murray\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-29744\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-29744\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/files\/2013\/10\/jim_murray-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"jim_murray\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Many people across Europe regard the European Parliament as irrelevant, or worse. Personally I find this sad but they are entitled to their view. I wrote a blog here a few months ago to illustrate the important work done by many MEPs, taking the example of clinical trials. You can find it <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/01\/21\/jim-murray-some-meps-work-very-hard\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I thought it might be interesting to \u201crecycle\u201d this before the elections\u00a0for Parliament. It is partly about one MEP, but many others work just as hard and just as effectively.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Vote according to your own political preferences but do vote.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Jim Murray<\/strong>\u00a0is a former director of BEUC\u2014the European Consumers Organisation, having previously been the first director of Consumer Affairs and Fair Trade in Ireland. He writes here in a personal capacity. During his time with BEUC, he was a founder and one time president of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. Currently he is a member of the European Commission\u2019s High Level Group on Administrative Burdens, and president of the European Foundation for Financial Inclusion.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people across Europe regard the European Parliament as irrelevant, or worse. Personally I find this sad but they are entitled to their view. I wrote a blog here a [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/05\/21\/jim-murray-who-cares-about-the-european-parliament\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5746],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jim-murray"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Jim Murray: Who cares about the European Parliament? - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2014\/05\/21\/jim-murray-who-cares-about-the-european-parliament\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jim Murray: Who cares about the European Parliament? - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many people across Europe regard the European Parliament as irrelevant, or worse. 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