Diversity in European parliament?

With 785 representatives from 27 member countries and chambers in Brussels and Strasbourg, the European parliament is the world’s only directly elected international chamber. It represents a more diverse range of people than almost any other – 492 million European citizens. But, it is also almost completely white.
There are just nine non-white MEPs here, 1.1% of the total. It is estimated that at least 5% of the population of the EU – 25 million and rising – is non-white and this figure does not include the eight million Roma in the EU. As well as MEPs, almost all the bureaucrats are white. So are security staff. This whiteness stunned Claude Moraes, a London MEP who was raised in Scotland by Indian parents, when he first arrived in Brussels. „I grew up in an all-white town and an all-white school. When I came here, it hit me hard that it was so ethnically non-diverse and that no one spots it or cares about it,“ he says. „You walk out of this place and there is complete ethnic diversity in Brussels – from Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Come here and that’s all over, unless you arrive at 5am when the cleaners are in.“
Across the political spectrum, ethnic minority MEPs struggle to get colleagues interested in campaigning for a parliament that is roughly reflective of the ethnic mix of Europe’s people. Islam, immigration and integration are increasingly tense subjects across Europe. This parliament is tackling them with all-white representatives.