European Parliament Elections, June 2004

With the launch of the European Parliament election campaign a number of promotional events and activities have been organised to encourage interest and awareness - and, it is hoped, a higher turnout of voters. Through the elections link accessible from the European Parliament's home page at www.europarl.eu.int/home/default_en.htm, you can find information about the work of the Parliament, election information, brochures, pictures and more, together with a heading “Infotainment”. Here visitors to the site can find the next episode on-screen of the Parliament's cartoon strip publication Troubled waters as well as the latest fun activity, an interactive quiz where the participant is a virtual candidate working round the EU25 countries to gather votes. See http://www.europaquiz.org. You can take part in the quiz in any of the 20 official languages. To win votes, you have to answer correctly the multiple choice questions but you can select which categories you will try. The number of steps that you can take from country to country depends on the throw of a virtual dice, but like Snakes and Ladders you can suddenly find yourself penalised by x thousand votes or awarded a special bonus, or you can choose to buy extra throws of the dice at the expense of some of your votes. However it is not just a chance to check your knowledge of the EU. For the lucky 25 winners there will be an opportunity to attend the first part-session of the new Parliament in Strasbourg in July. To win you have to visit all of the countries - a logistical test - at the same time as gathering the highest number of votes.