The UK's Michael Cashman: From Albert Square to Brussels?

The UK's quota of showbiz candidates consists of Michael Cashman, better known to millions as Colin, the gay Guardian-reading onetime resident of Albert Square in the TV soap Eastenders.

He is standing for Labour in the West Midlands and as second on the party list stands a very good chance of getting elected.

Italian glamour

There are better pickings elsewhere in the European Union. The most glamour, perhaps unsurprisingly, is to be found in Italy.

Here voters have the chance to elect a true Hollywood star, albeit of a bygone era: 71-year-old Gina Lollobrigida, "La Lollo", is standing for the Democrats.

The Democrats are a new party set up by Romano Prodi before he found himself in the position of President-elect of the European Commission.

Another Cinemascope name standing in Italy is the film director Franco Zefferelli, the auteur behind Romeo and Juliet, and Tess. He is contesting a Euro-seat for Forza Italia.

Sport is not unrepresented, either. Paolo Rossi, the World Cup-winning hero of 1982 (he scored a crucial hat-trick against Brazil), is standing for the Italian National Alliance.

Danny Cohn-Bendit: The soixante-huitard brings a whiff of rebel glamour to Brussels

And Reinhold Messner, the famous German mountaineer, is standing for the Italian Greens. He is the only Euro-candidate who claims to have met a Yeti.

Naked electioneering

Standing for the Flemish Liberal Party in Belgium is Anke van Dermeersch, a former Miss Belgium turned Antwerp lawyer.

Among her election promises is a pledge to pose naked if the voters send her to Brussels.

In Finland, former world rally-driving champion Ari Vatanen is standing for the centre-right KOK party.

He describes the Euro-election as "the hardest race of my life", which is not surprising given that he is starting well back on the grid - a sporting phrase for low down on his party list.

And Tino Singh, the Finnish equivalent of Chris Evans, is standing for the Greens. Of Indian origin, should he win the singer and TV presenter will be one of only a handful of ethnic minority contenders to have made it to the European Parliament.

Dana: Wants to convert Eurovision success into a seat in the European Parliament

In France, Daniel Cohn-Bendit MEP, once better known as "Danny the Red", is standing once more - though he has switched, by invitation of the French, from the German Greens and now heads the French Greens' list.

The still-radical soixante-huitard brings a touch of rebel glamour to Brussels.

"Dana", whose fame rests on her having once won the Eurovision Song Contest, is standing under her real name of Rosemary Scallon Brown as an independent in Ireland, despite living most of the time in Alabama, US.

All this and blue blood too: royalty is putting itself up for election in Austria. Karl Habsburg-Lothringen, the son of Otto Habsurg-Lothringen (heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire), is seeking the verdict of the voting masses.