Overblown, unwieldy, corrupt and damaging to British interests: these are the charges levelled at the EU as the Euro elections approach. The danger, warns the secretary of the European bishops, is that the rhetoric overshadows what a bold and successful venture the union has been When the first direct elections to the European Parliament were held in 1979, there was a 62 per cent turnout across nine member states. Thirty years later, in a European Union (EU) of 27 member states, the turnout had sunk to 43 per cent. The downward curve makes clear that weakening popular ownership of the European project did not begin with the banking crisis and Black Monday.With just two weeks to go to polling day, soundings suggest that of the 370 million voters across an EU now made up of 28 countries, w