From The Sunday Telegraph

It was a telling comment on how our country is now governed that in just four days last week the European Parliament considered more items of legislation than appear in a Queen's Speech and that most of this went wholly unreported.
MEPs punched buttons hundreds of times, to approve 40 directives and other proposals, which will impose costs on Britain's economy amounting to billions of pounds. Yet there is little or nothing our Westminster Parliament can do to influence this flood of legislation in any way.
One directive, for instance, will outlaw the sale of vitamin and mineral supplements, except those on a list approved by the European Union, meaning that thousands of harmless products used by millions to balance their diet will have to be withdrawn. Another will knock £1 billion off the income of Britain's post office, which says it will be forced to add several pence to the price of a stamp. A directive imposing new limits on airport noise, however welcome to those who live near airports, will bring a significant rise in the cost of air travel. This is quite separate from the Physical Agents (Noise) directive, also approved by MEPs, which will make it virtually impossible to run a teenage dance club or for an orchestra to play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony unless all the musicians wear ear plugs. This in turn is not to be confused with the Physical Agents (Whole Body Vibration) directive, approved last week in Brussels, which will make it illegal to operate almost any kind of machinery, from heavy goods vehicles and tractors to chain saws and road drills, for more than a few hours or even minutes a day.

It has not been generally noticed that there has recently been a significant mutation in the nature of legislation pouring out of the EU. For a long time all these directives remained comfortably remote from the lives of most people, affecting only comparatively small sectors of the population, such as fishermen, farmers or abattoir owners. But today, as the EU moves towards the final stages of political integration, its legislators feel free to pass laws which will have much wider effect, like those which will impose costs amounting sometimes to hundreds of pounds on anyone wishing to dispose of old vehicles, television sets or any type of electrical equipment

Other proposals voted on by MEPs last week included a tranche of new directives on financial services, taxation and power supplies, to celebrate the EU's assumption of control over financial and energy markets. They approved the creation of a European Data Protection Supervisor (how they love those capital letters) to ensure the enforcement of data protection law in the EU. They voted for moves towards welding the EU into a "single judicial space", with a single system of justice based on the continental model. Finally they welcomed a proposal to give the European Union its own "legal personality" as a sovereign country, able to claim representation at the UN and to sign treaties in its own right. Since to a great extent we already live in that country it must be remembered that its laws can only be proposed by the European Commission, over which we have no democratic control. The role of the MEPs, punching their little buttons, is only to rubber stamp what the Commission proposes. In other words, we increasingly live in what is in effect a one-party state. Whatever doubts we have about the version of democracy represented by Mr Mugabe, are we really in any position to wax so self-righteous?

Come on now!

If they didn't pass any laws you'd be complaining that you weren't getting value for money for their sky high salaries.

And if they didn't cram all the work into one day you'd be complaining about them claiming even more in sky high expenses.