During the last EU election here I even called individual MPs and talked to them, or their office staff, about various subjects. So they're quite accessible.
And it was irrelevant because the EU Parliament isn't a real Parliament, no more than the assembly of representatives in North Korea is. It lacks the so-called right of initiation, meaning that only the EU Commission has the power to change the law. As a consequence nobody who cares about politics bothers going there, except in cases like Farage or Le Pen as a way to get free money they can spend on campaigning against the EU as a concept. Why would anyone who cares about politics spend their time in a body where political ideas are worthless because you aren't allowed to propose them?
Would you like more evidence? The commissioner who made this tweet about the DSA flew over to California and told Musk to obey the new regulations before the EUP had even had a chance to vote on it at all. In a normal government, the legislature has to actually vote to pass new rules before the executive tells people to comply. But the EUP is a rubber stamp designed to grant the surface level appearance of legitimacy to the Commission's decisions, not a body that can actually keep the EU in check, so Breton didn't even bother waiting for it before starting to implement the DSA.
That's how much the EU itself cares about its "Parliament", so why should anyone else care?
It's like having a presidential race between Biden and Trump and then installing Weird Al Yankovic as president after all votes are counted.
Von Der Leyen was not proposed by any party. The parties proposed other leaders. The "spitzenkandidaten" system that led to Juncker becoming EU President was only used once and was ignored this time. In fact nobody knows why or how Von Der Leyen became the EU President, only that the council leaders disappeared into a secret meeting and at the end, the deed was done. What was discussed? Were countries bribed or threatened to go along with it? What exactly qualified her for this role given her track record of failure in Germany? Nobody knows the answers to these questions.
So no, it's really nothing like the Chancellor in Germany or leadership anywhere else. The EU's own misinformation campaign around this topic is clearly highly effective. Normally, the people who run the country are elected by at least some local voters and then by the party itself. With the EU Commission, the president just ... turned up.
Germany and France wanted these positions and decided amongst themselves who got which. Both wanted the ECB presidency more.
Is that meant to be a bad thing? Because you make it sound like a good thing.
This could still happen in the USA. The electors (the 538 people in the Electoral College who actually pick the president) could vote for anyone they wanted, and if enough wanted Weird Al then he would be POTUS. States have made laws to require electors to vote for the person who won the state election or face punishment, but that is not a Constitutional requirement or anything.
We need more examples of this, to show that you can actual reach your representatives.
Either way, yes I was able to just call their office numbers listed on their websites and get through. I also in some cases got personal replies to my e-mails from individual MEPs.
If you call their office most likely someone else will answer the phone but in some cases, if you're lucky, you can just ask if the MEP is available.