“…Access to the Commission, however, is differentiated between regions: democratically elected, richly institutionally endowed regional authorities will be at an advantage compared to weaker or non-majoritarian ones. 24 The European Parliament Apart from some minor exceptions (Bomberg and Peterson, 1998: 226;Hooghe, 1995a: 181), the European Parliament (EP) has often been overlooked as a channel of regional interest representation in the EU (Hooghe and Marks, 1996;Keating, 1998;Jeffery, 2000;Hooghe, 2002;Keating and Hooghe, 2006). The EP, however, can be an effective channel to promote sub-state interests within the EU arena, especially when MEPs are elected on the basis of regional constituencies, as is the case in the UK, France, Belgium, Ireland or Italy.…”