This paper aims to shed light on the significance of being an MEP in individual political careers. This requires to focus on the sequence of political positions occupied before becoming an MEP, within the EP, and the after leaving the EP. The eventual career patterns emerging at each of these stages and their relationships will allow us to answer to a number of issues such as 1) selection dynamics (i.e. what kind of previous career profiles are more frequent among MEPs? Do these patterns vary along time or across parties? 2) Parliamentary performance (i.e. does internal career in the EP depend on previous career?) and 3) Career continuation (i.e. is there any relationship between previous and during-EP career patterns and political career continuation after leaving the EP?). These questions will be confronted by applying sequence analysis and other data analysis techniques to a unique dataset on the political careers (before, during, and after EP) of all Spanish MEPs between 1986 and 2010.