Diary of an MEP

ECON - Portuguese Presidency speech

2007-07-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

8.15 The ALDE Econ Breakfast. Seems that carousing went on well into the small hours last night, but Wolf, Sophie, Mariela and Bilyana make it as well as me.

9.00 ELDE Econ prep meeting. We discuss who is doing which upcoming matters. I have been given the rapporteurship of an opinion on the aging demography of Europe. I had said I would shadow and the one I really wanted about financial instruments for the environment we do not get so I am only shadow. I give up the rapporteurship on the demography to one of the Bulgarian members who wants to do something. We discuss a voting list and then Margarita comes in and makes a fuss about the van den Burg report. Comments not bloggable!!

10.00 We all gallop off to an extraordinary ECON committee meeting to listen to the Portuguese Presidency. We also have a vote to do which we only just get squeezed in by 11.25 when we all have to rush off to plenary votes at 11.30.

11.30 Votes. We have quite a lot to do but I have to say that Poettering in the chair does an express job and we get through an awful lot in one hour.

12.45 Back in the office. Everyone is leaving. As usual I have several hours now by myself. So I pack my trunk, sort through papers, do letter to the Financial Times and do the blog. I attend the human rights votes at 4pm. Finish the blog and find I still have a couple of hours so I start the long read of the official version of solvency ll!! I will be leaving for Basle at 7pm and should be home sometime after midnight Strasbourg time.

A busy day in plenary

2007-07-11T09:51:00.000-07:00

9.00 Arrive in Parliament and have meeting with Microsoft. Their technical chap joins in via telephone, which is useful. We are now expecting a decision on the competition case in September. However even after that, and irrespective of which way it goes, we will still be left with interoperability and standards to deal with. I point out, as I have to everyone, that if industry can not get its act together and agree the way to go it will be all the more up to politicians to decide. The annoying thing is that different arguments are deployed at different times and places by several companies because of the particular litigation in which they are embroiled. I see major work coming up on all this next year.

10.00 Yet more email spats on the van den Burg Report. There are some split votes on references to tax. Wolf and I say we would prefer them out as a subsidiarity point, Margarita wants them in. Rest of the morning spent on papers and sorting votes.

12.00 I go to plenary armed with three extra voting lists. I gather the EPP will back taking out investment banks, so I should be able to chalk up another little success. Votes are deferred until 12.30, then start late at 12.45, there are complaints. Apparently the Portuguese Presidency spoke for too long. Lots of the votes are tight and have to be checked. The vand den Burg report seems to go reasonably OK, investment banks come out. We are still voting at ten past two when Pervenche Beres interrupts with a point of order that we can not continue and will have to start early tomorrow. (There are still three long voting lists left. It also means lunch meetings are being spoiled and plenary starts again at 3pm). Nobody waits to hear, we all clap, bang desks and vote with our feet. We have an LDEPP photo call outside plenary.

14.35 I get to my office and the stock exchange people who expected to see me at 2pm are waiting. We have a useful discussion, I am glad I grabbed a sandwich before votes! I am having another of those no meals weeks so far.

15.15 Well it is now getting into the routine of organising things that need to be done over the holiday. My TRIPS speaking time is moving onwards towards 8pm from its original schedule of around 6.45. I hope it does not get too late as we have a dinner on private equity at 8pm

19.20 Into plenary for TRIPS. I am not really impressed by the contributions, there is no point blaming the provisions in the amendments as being the reason it has not been invoked, the necessary circumstances have not really arrived yet, which I endeavour to explain, again.

20.05 Debate finishes just in time to go for the dinner. The presentations are quite informative although they overlap a lot with information in this week’s Economist. It ends just after 10pm. I have missed the Group barbeque because I attended this – however I bet I will be glad in the morning.

Debate on Van den Burg, Barometers

2007-07-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

9.00 Get to the Parliament. We get a panic email from our administrator that her submissions from yesterday missed the deadline. We point out that they could not, they were a day early!! Seems both Delphine and the tabling office now suffering fatigue! We then have an email from Margarita saying she does not agree with what was agreed yesterday. It is pointed out she was outvoted (and would have been even if she had been there).

10.30 I go down to plenary for the debate on the van den Burg report. I have decided to concentrate on three points: hedge funds/private equity, where I say discussion and analysis fine but do not put pre-emptive conclusions in the same sentence just to be fashionable, the investment bank point and not to try and asses the next steps in supervising before we have finished the current changes. It seems to fit in (or challenge) what other say. Radwan speaks after me and in reply to me says he is not be pre-emptive on hedge funds (or words to that effect). I think it is good to get a dynamic exchange within such short speeches! All these speeches are available on the Parliament websites, so no need for more here! I talk to Ieke van den Burg afterwards about investment banks and say I would accept a compromise that pointed out there were differing degrees of concentration.

12.00 Votes. Diana is in the chair for her first session of votes. She is very clear and it is possible to hear everything she says without headphones. Why is it only the Brits that speak up so clearly! We get to the vote on whether mercury should be banned in antique barometers. I turn to the page and there is an extraordinary list of which delegations are voting how, with subdivisions within that, so it runs over two pages. Several colleagues look around wondering who to side with!. Basically we are all split between being pragmatic, being rules is rules and possibly thinking it is a member state thing. I vote for antique barometers.

13.15 Back to the office. There are continuing email exchanges about our voting on the van den Burg report.

16.00 We have a committee meeting with Charlie McCreevy about Solvency ll, which is launched today. I arrive on time, as does Karin and McCreevy and entourage, but everyone else is late!

17.30 Back in the office and more paperwork. I plot my one minute on TRIPS. News that I may have got a split vote request in on investments banks has been discovered by Deutche Bank. Their lobbyist comes to check then happily goes away to talk to MEPs in the EPP.

18.30 Reception and speeches on launch of Solvency ll. There are about five speakers lined up, starting with Charlie McCreevy, who usefully spots that if he reads his speech (9 pages) everyone else will do the same and so we will be there until midnight. So he sets the trend for improvisation, which works well. Just as the speeches end I get text from Carol to sprint over to Group for votes.

20.00 Votes in Group on postal services and employ with lost of proxies. Win some, lose some. So this means we will have work to do tomorrow on three voting lists. Leave Parliament at 9pm

Van den Burg

2007-07-09T09:45:00.001-07:00

5.30 Off to Luton airport. I bid goodbye to other regular travellers I may not see again when the flights change in September. I finish off the blog for last week on the plane. We get to Basle approximately on time, car is there and so Austrian MEP Johannes and I get to the Parliament just before noon (11 am UK time). Being first in I unpack my trunk and all the other stuff we have locked in the cupboard (my mini fridge got stolen last year). Having unpacked I investigate emails and other correspondence. Check through the amendments that other Groups have filed on the van den Burg report.

15.30 Go down to Group. Nothing hugely relevant to me but I am keeping a watch out for things popping up from various committees other than my own. I get 1 minute to speak on the van den Burg report and they forget to give me time on TRIPS (but I see the Secretary general who says he will fix it, so that will be another one minute)

17.30 Our UKLib Dem delegation meeting (LDEPP). We exchange views about items coming up for votes where we may have to fight our corner in Group. Possible controversies are on postal services, the report on the employment green paper and the one that has been constantly on my desk, the van den Burg report on the financial services white paper. The biggest problem we have however seems to be how can we get all twelve of us in one place to have our photo taken.

18.00 I leave LDEPP early to get to Working Group A to discuss the van den Burg report. Those of us there reach an agreed line on the various amendments in from other groups and I get agreement to ask for a split vote to take ‘investment banks’ out of a paragraph that flags up the consolidation of firms offering financial services to large listed companies, especially in the field of audit, Credit rating and investment banks. I think the statement is true about audit firms (less than a handful that can do the big audits) and credit rating agencies, but there is not the same order of concentration with investment banks and that dilutes the point we are making about audit firms. Margarita is not there, who is the shadow, and I point out that she may have a differing view on a couple of points. However, everyone there agrees the lines that Wolf and I want to take.

19.00 Back to the office, paperwork and working out how much I can squeeze into one minute on the financial services report. The shorter the speech the harder it is. I take the opportunity to leave ‘early’ at 20.30.

9th - 12th July Strasbourg week. End of term.

2007-07-09T09:45:00.000-07:00

Busy Weekend Ahead!

2007-07-05T09:36:00.000-07:00

9.00 In to the office. All I am doing this morning is clearing my desk and getting the midday Eurostar as I have a meeting in London. On Eurostar work on my speech for Friday, which means I have missed my blogging time again. Getting into bad habits. Tomorrow morning we are presenting the Eurostar petition at Downing Street, then I have my speech, then another meeting. On Saturday I am in Maidstone. Pity it is not Sunday as I could have caught the Tour de France at the same time.

Solvency II and Collective Actions

2007-07-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

9.00 Group meeting. Rather irritatingly I have to leave before the employment bit. However proxies have been arranged but I am not sure we have enough people there to cast them all.

10.00 I go on a bit of mystery tour in the Journalists’ part of the Parliament building. Looks much swisher than our bit!! Eventually find the seminar. I have to start it on my own then Pervenche Beres arrives. We talk about Solvency ll, private equity, hedge funds and the Euro. We are filmed by Spanish TV.

12.30 Back to the office and collect a few papers then down to the lunch that I am hosting on collective redress in Europe.

13.00 Lunch with the European Justice Forum. We talk about collective actions, how not to have the pitfalls of the US system. I think it is useful. My input mainly seems to be getting the message over that the Parliament is probably more interested in consumer redress aspects than in encouraging company on company actions. There is some mention of the recent developments in Australia, which may not have gone as intended. I will need to follow this up.

15.00 Back to the office and to pack my trunk for Strasbourg. Then I do some more work on what to say on Friday. I think I have too much now but will edit it down on Eurostar tomorrow. Carol leaves to get Eurostar back to UK, then Alan leaves. I hope he has had a flavour of what goes on. Probably easier to follow as it was a Group week. I am just getting ready to leave when Peter Price turn up to talk about Solvency ll, so end up leaving at about 8pm.

TRIPS, Working Groups and Meetings

2007-07-03T09:28:00.000-07:00

8.00 I am at a working breakfast on alternative dispute resolution. I am the first speaker, which works quite well because I am able to cover some of the basic discussion on the mediation directive that we had with the incoming Portuguese presidency. Again I toss in class/collective actions and the question of whether ADR could eliminate the need for court class actions. A question of whether that satisfies the ECJ (who say consumers must have right of redress) without infringing human rights, which I suppose it may not if there is an individual right to court still.

9.30 Into the office and paperwork. I have not had any detailed feedback on the amendments to the van den Burgh report that I launched last week. I gather that Margarita has spoken to Wolf, so let’s see what happens in Group.

11.00 There is a meeting of the European Federalists to discuss the outcome of the European Council. I take Alan along so he can listen in. I thought they might be saying something to us about their thoughts, but by the time I get there it seems the other way around, so I say how it looks from the UK perspective. Leave early in order to get to working group on TRIPS.

11.30 Working group. I say my bit about the TRIPS matter. I still think that the sooner we ratify the better, but obviously others think prevarication gives more opportunity to make a fuss. Not that it will make a great deal of difference. I am asking for speaking time on this next week.

12.10 My individual meeting with the working Group. We go through mainly the financial portfolios I am dealing with and their relevance to individuals: which of course is quite a lot as long as there is more than one sentence to explain it in. The easy approach is to hang it around the Equitable Life enquiry and the need to have good pension planning, which gets us into equity and mortgages and so on.

12.45 LDEPP meeting with Nick Clegg. A general exchange of views about things European and whether we need a referendum on the treaty. I say I have changed my mind: I used to think, when we asked for a referendum on the Euro, that it meant we would proceed to have sensible discussion. However all that has happened is that it has swept sensible discussion under the carpet – the same was true as a result of calling for a referendum on the Constitution, never any detailed discussion. So there should not be a referendum and if people do not like it then they should insist that Europe is talked about when we have General Elections. It is not a side dish or a ‘how to have a free kick’. The most powerful part of the EU legislature, the Council, our Government Ministers, are elected at General Elections, so about time it was an issue then.

14.30 Working group A. The van den Burg report. About two thirds of my amendments are agreed as is. After a bit of a battle we agree there are ways to compromise on the rest. Then we have a bit of a ding dong about a proposed amendment from Margarita, backed by Wolf. It is all about objecting to foreign (Chinese and Russian) investment in hedge funds. I started off gently with free market principles, which did not get me far enough, eventually did the words protectionist populism really fall from my lips? Anyway, amendment not being tabled as a result. Carol thinks it was all very instructive for Alan to listen to me arguing my case.

15.30 Office and papers. I have a look at my notes for speaking on Friday and we collate some information for tomorrow when I appear to have agreed to do a seminar session with some Journalists on economic committee subjects. Some compromise texts on van den Burg go back and forth.

17.30 Group Meeting. We are able to give the good news that we have agreed on our van den Burg amendments. Several of us get annoyed that we are not discussing an Employment paper that we have all turned up for because the lead person can not be there. I have just been checking out Liz’s proposed amendments and they are fine. I shadowed this on ECON.

A day of meetings

2007-07-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

10.00 Off to Heathrow. Flight delayed. Arrive at my office around 3.30. Edith is there going through Eurostar petition things with Carol. We are presenting this at Downing Street on Friday Morning. I also have a work experience student, Alan, in my office this week. He has red hair too – seems the trade mark of my office.

17.00 A delegation from the European Committee for Interoperable Standards arrive, billed as discussing the anti-trust complaint about Microsoft. However I am more interested in dealing with interoperability away from hard cases, so we end up having a wide ranging discussion.

18.30 Reception for a policy working group from the Lib Dems. Useful networking and exchange of information. I have a formal session with them tomorrow so I am not going to the dinner tonight and I can read up on alternative dispute resolution ready for tomorrow morning.

2nd – 6th July Group week

2007-07-02T09:25:00.000-07:00

Back to the UK

2007-06-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

9.00 Reading more proposals on the van den Burgh report, followed by a meeting with LIBA, ISDA and SIFMA on the same subject. In general terms I have already covered the points they make.

14.00 Leave for Eurostar.

2007-06-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

9.00 Into ECON. We have votes at 9.30 My bank accounts opinion is scheduled last and I try to get it moved to the front because I am concerned I may not get away in time to get to the session I am chairing at the stock exchanges conference. Anyway, they will not move it. Voting takes ages. We seem to be holding the balance in everything and a lot of the votes are tight. The EPP do not seem to like some aspects of my opinion and vote against, but as they did not take part in the discussions or put in any amendments I do not know what their problem is. My opinion does not seem greatly at variance with the EPP report in JURI that we discussed, very briefly, on Monday. Anyway the Socialists vote with me so it all goes through.

10.45 I finally get away and head for the Conrad for the conference. Traffic is terrible and Carol is texting and phoning as they are getting worried. No real problem and I get there in time to chat to the people on the panel that I am chairing on governance. Anyway, all goes well, and I introduce into the discussion whether there is more market abuse by hedge funds than other investments, as some allege. My shoe breaks at the end of lunch so lop-sided walk to get the Metro back. Fortunately my flat en route for shoe change.

15.00 Plenary session with report back from Chancellor Merkel, or rather as she is for a few days yet, President in Office (of Council). Some good speech points made by various contributors. Graham Watson performs well and Poettering thanks him for his ‘remarkable’ speech.

17.00 Back to the office and some work on amendments for the van den Burgh report which I send to others in the Group.

19.00 Leave, early again(!). Unfortunately no live play at Wimbledon.

End of term-itis

2007-06-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

9.00 Get to the office. This morning there are some interesting sessions in the stock exchanges conference. Carol goes. I start working on various papers and points for speeches next week. On Friday I talk to TMPDF and three judges are coming. Feeling sick and suffering from hay fever so decide I can not face a lunch.

14.00 ECON prep meeting. One of those least said soonest mended sessions. I reckon some colleagues must be feeling even worse than me. Andreas Losco does a grand job trying to be peacemaker. I can not really work out what the problem is. I think this is what teachers must call end of term-itis.

15.00 Back to the office where I lurk for as long as possible to get through the papers. I go down to ECON at 4.45 for the session with Neelie Kroes. I get there just in time to hear Jonathan Evans giving a bit of stick about the deletion of undistorted competition from the treaty amendments. If I heard correctly I think he got into it by suggesting that a few members of the Council and Commission would learn a lot from attending a Competition Day! I lead the desk banging.

Neelie is robust in her response to this and other related points saying that the protocol is as binding as the treaty and there is no downgrading and she will not be doing anything differently. It is true nothing has been taken out of the treaty, it is just that a proposed amendment has been changed.

20.00 I go back to my flat having given apologies earlier today for not going to the Gala dinner at the Bourse. I would not be good company sniffling away.

Travelling...

2007-06-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

10.15 Off to the airport. Flight is delayed so a bit of a rush to dash straight to the legal affairs committee when I get in at 3.45. Votes at 4.15 include the compromise on the TRIPS amendments, which passes easily. Not surprising as it is a compilation of my and the EPP proposals.

18.00 Meeting with representatives from Scottish Widows and TSB on Solvency ll. Nothing new. The directive is launched in July, and then I will not be wanting to see anyone unless they are coming with a definite problem or proposal, preferably submitted in writing.

Committee Week.

2007-06-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

Lisbon - Solicitors and Advocates

2007-06-15T04:37:00.000-07:00

9.30 We set off for a meeting with the association of solicitors. They are not the same as UK solicitors in that they have fewer powers and barristers (or advocates) can do everything. However in 2003 solicitors here were also allowed to become enforcement officers. This could give them useful insight into the proposals for attachments of bank accounts so I ask them about this, and also class actions and whether there is a size limit to matters than can be handled via mediation.

11.00 A meeting with the chair of the advocates association. This covers many of the same topics again, but getting at more detail and is useful for future contacts.

13.30 Ursa (our ALDE administrator on JURI) and I take a city tour bus as my flight back is not until this evening and she is staying until Sunday. I have to get back to the UK as I have to go to Witney (Carterton) on Sunday to help with a local by election.

Lisbon

2007-06-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

9.45 We assemble and go by coach to the European Parliament Office in Lisbon for a meeting with the former Commissioner Vitorino. It is raining (in Lisbon in June, meanwhile it is 30 degrees in Copenhagen!!) and we do not have umbrellas.

First our coach gets lost, well actually heads off for the Parliament which is where we are going this afternoon. Then it can not get close to the Parliament office so we all have to walk in the rain. Some of the female group staff have got the wrong shoes for this in the rain…female MEPs appear more circumspect….and we are all pretty good at adapting our dossiers as umbrellas. The meeting is interesting. Among other things we raise the issue of missing children in Portugal. It is a problem that in Portugal a missing child can not be deemed abducted for 48 hours. We also discuss mediation, which they have used effectively in Portugal in recent years and so it is hoped that this experience will help to solve some of the problems with the Directive during their Presidency. Other topics include money laundering, terrorism and immigration.

14.30 We arrive at the Parliament. Again we discuss mediation and arbitration.

16.00 Next meeting is with the Minister and his team. Again we discuss mediation and also the ECJ decision that says EU law can be backed up by criminal sanctions. The truth here is that we are all awaiting another ruling from the ECJ which we do not expect to be quite so extensive as the last one, or at last gives more guidelines as to where it may have a legal base. We also have some exchanges on intellectual property and class actions. The same subjects are discussed informally in different groupings over dinner.

Bob the Builder

2007-06-13T04:34:00.000-07:00

8.30 A photo op with Bob the builder (!) to do with energy saving buildings.

9.00 Another photo op with plastic bottles and cans for recycling.

10.00 Meeting about a securities seminar session that I am chairing the week after next.

11.00 Discussions on TRIPS, paperwork, preparing trunk for Strasbourg and then at 3pm off to Lisbon for meetings on the Portuguese Presidency with the JURI committee. This evening I have a dinner with the ALDE group coordinators, who are also here for meetings tomorrow with the Presidency. The EPP coordinators have apparently gone off to much more exotic Portuguese climes.

My Birthday!

2007-06-12T04:33:00.000-07:00

9.00 Spend the entire morning on the latest voting list for the financial services white paper and doing some swapping of lists with other MEPs.

12.45 Lunch with the Alternative Investment Managers Association. This is a meeting on hedge funds that I am co-hosting. The presentations are very helpful. I am hoping that slowly people will begin to realise that not all hedge funds are the same and that even those that appear in the press as aggressive could not be so if there were not some underlying flaw for them to pick at. I think we must dig further on market abuse points as there was a steong belief by some MEPs that funds indulged in collusions that would in fact be illegal, which was hotly contested. I suspect that because collusion is not allowed the press is used instead.

15.00 Back to the office then summoned (well, invited) to a meeting with the Romanian Justice Minister. I am able to raise my concerns about the abilities of the Romanian legal system in technical areas like competition and financial fraud. I raise the matter of the Credit Suisse employee that I have also raised with Commissioner Frattini, who so far has not replied. In particular I raise the matter of length of proceedings.

17.00 Into Group Meeting to listen to the Romanian Prime Minister.

18.00 Reception for the South East England Development Agency.

A postponed vote

2007-06-11T04:32:00.000-07:00

14.00 ECON prep meeting on the financial services white paper. I think we are reaching some compromises within our Group and making some progress, but there is still a lot of work needed. It seems really impractical to try and vote today. I am beginning to think I will vote against it if we have to rush too much.

15.00 ECON. It is decided to postpone the vote on the financial services white paper until next week. We have a discussion with Trichet from the ECB and discuss amendments to my report on attachment of bank accounts. I then dash down two floors to the JURI committee in time to discuss the amendment to Article 31 of TRIPS.

18.00 Back to the office. I prepare an amendment to the report on TRIPS.

11th to 15 June Group Week and Lisbon

2007-06-11T04:31:00.000-07:00

Day in the office

2007-06-08T04:31:00.000-07:00

I am still in Brussels. Spend the day catching up on various Intellectual property issues and also have a meeting with Consumer Organisation about Radio frequency tagging.

USA, Scotland and Place de Luxembourg

2007-06-07T04:28:00.000-07:00

8.00 Kangaroo Group breakfast on how much are we regulated by the US. There is a feeling that we are now influencing them as much as vice versa. There is a useful presentation also on International Financial reporting Standards (on which I am half way through preparing our amendments). Some concern that the US may not accept the flexibility of interpretation that a minimum harmonising proposal allows and so although saying they accept IFRS will say ‘but not your version’. This needs further exploration ut it could just be a waystage position.

10.45 Meeting with Commission on patents

11.30 Votes.

12.30 Lunch with Scottish Enterprise and various Scottish financial institutions. People forget how important finance is to Scotland, 10% of their jobs depend upon it!

15.00 Meet various people for discussions on way back to Parliament from lunch venue – seems difficult to try and get across Place de Luxembourg unseen! Then more on amendments...

Amendments

2007-06-06T04:27:00.000-07:00

8.30 LDEPP meeting.

9.00 Back to the office for more struggles with amendments.

10.30 Meeting with the Forum of Private Business.

11.00 Group meeting.

12.30 Photo with group of visiting Lib Dems.

13.00 SME circle lunch. The major topic of discussion is the reclassification of various previously exempted technology goods for import duty. A lot of this is due to the way in which technology has become integrated so that a still digital camera (exempt) that can now take a short moving sequence is classed as a movie camera (not exempt). This is bad news for many industries and seems rather like some over zealous interpretation. I feel some Parliamentary Questions coming on.

15.00 I thought I had a meeting with Commissioner Kroes but it seems to have migrated to another week again. So back to the amendments.

16.30 Meeting with FSA/CEIOPS (Insurance regulators).

17.15 Meeting with 3i on private equity and venture capital.

18.00 Reception for mutual societies organisations. We have today voted an amendment saying we want a European Mutuals statute. This would be a revival of a proposal that got axed when lots of old proposals were scrapped. We said it was a mistake to get rid of this one at that time.

Airports and Labour Law

2007-06-05T04:26:00.000-07:00

9.00 ECON again. We discuss airport charges, mergers and acquisitions and have an exchange of views with the Chairman of CESR (the Committee of European Securities Regulators).

12.15 European Parliament Financial Services Forum lunch on Target2 Securities.

15.30 ECON again and votes on labour law. At the end of the ECON meeting we have a discussion on the amendments to the financial services white paper amongst the principal protagonists.

19.30 back to flat

Arrival in Brussels - ECON on Statistics

2007-06-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

8.30 Leave for Heathrow. I am getting the earlier flight, which is a little inconvenient as we are trying also to meet some noon amendment filing deadlines and I am in transit at crucial times. It is good to be in Brux for 1pm and have time before committee, but on balance I think it is preferable to have the time in communication with my offices before leaving. Once I arrive we work on the financial services white paper amendments.

15.00 Into the ECON committee. Among other things we discuss my report on the Statistical Advisory Board. Some of my ideas seem well received. I think the German Presidency still want to stick to some exact wording that they have agreed in one or two places, but I am hoping for some input for colleagues first.

19.30 Depart for my flat to dump suitcase before going to a dinner of the International Trademark Association, following from their conference.

4th to 8th June – Mini Plenary

2007-06-04T04:22:00.000-07:00

We have had another constituency week, during which I had briefings in the City, and now we have mini plenary week, the committee week being ‘missed’ again. (But they make up for it by squeezing extra committee meetings in both this week and next)

Key votes on Kashmir and Donnici

2007-05-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

9.00 We have an ECON prep meeting at which we discuss who wants to do what of the upcoming work. There is a wish by Andreas Losco to have more detailed discussion of the lines that rapporteurs and shadows take. I think we all agree this is a nice idea but in practice we are not managing to get meetings organised. During the exchanges he refers to the possibility ‘that Sharon may take some extreme Liberal position that the Italian delegation can not agree with’. I take this as a compliment, especially in the context of the ECON committee.

10.00 Back to the office and final checking of recorded votes, the Kashmir voting list and our red lines for what is sufficient to allow us to vote positively at the end.
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12.00 Votes. We have the vote on Donnici and they vote not to approve his credentials. Graham Watson gets up says it is illegal and that as we say in the UK ‘see you in court’. The Kashmir votes take ages but we eventually pass a combination that it just about OK for everyone. I am slightly annoyed as the Socialists still seem to only vote for their amendments and never for ours even when ours are sometimes better. If we did the same to them, the end result would be bad news for the content of the report. This should be above party politics.

14.00 I have a delegation from the UK permanent representation and the UK cabinet office to discuss patents.

15.00 Meeting with Fidelity Iternational about UCITS, Mifid and retail savings.

16.00 Catch up with phone calls, emails and packing. Get car to Basle at 7pm. Traffic after arrival at Luton a nightmare (do they not realise lots of flights get in around 11 pm and it is a stupid time to close the motorway) so we get home after midnight which my body clock thinks is after 1am.

The Donnici Code

2007-05-23T04:09:00.000-07:00

9.00 Arrive in office. Listen to a little bit of the roaming debate. Things are moving a little on the Donnici matter with amendments. It seems to be very much an Italian thing now and there are calls to be ‘respectful’ of parliamentary processes. If I speak I do not think I will be respectful I will say it is shameful and will bring shame on the Parliament when the sophistry of the arguments put forward is exposed (which I would expect the courts to do). However we have very little speaking time. I have already had a minute of my Gierek report time taken just to give us 2 minutes and a minute for me and a minute for Cocilova is not very much. As it means so much to the Italians to speak on this matter I will probably have to give Cocilova priority over myself (again).

10.00 We have a meeting on the amendments to the financial services white paper. There is some good discussion and some progress is made but we do not get anywhere on the sections about hedge funds. I indicate that it has to be revisited. We keep at it until the bell rings for us to go and vote. We will need a lot more time I think and I wonder whether it is realistic to try and vote on this in our next committee week as that only gives us as short time on Monday 4 June to reach agreement. Anyway, we shall see. .

12.00 – 13.00 votes. No incidents with headphones or otherwise. We vote on the Lulling report on excise duty. It is a mess and conflicting amendments are passed so at the end the rapporteur signals to her group to vote against and it falls.

13.00 Kangaroo Group lunch on the privatisation of postal services. I have decided to go because I want to find out more about how different universal service options have worked. I have to leave early before all the discussions end for another meeting.

14.00 Meeting with the Executive Director and several others from the ICHR Kashmir Centre on the Kashmir report. We discuss the original report, the committee amendments and those for plenary. I say that my ‘bottom line’ will be the same as in the Committee voting, if an amendment gets through that includes self determination, then I will vote in favour even if other amendments have been lost, but if nothing on self determination gets through then I will vote against. They seem to think this is a reasonable dividing line. This whole issue has of course been rumbling on all week, and last, with a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get agreement as far as possible from Emma.

15.00 I had intended to go to an SME intergoup meeting on labour law, but as yet I have not finalised the voting on the Gierek report nor worked out what to put into my 2 minute speech. I am still trying to amend paragraph about open standards in order to clarify that the definition given is not an official Commission policy (which it is not). However since the wording proposal came from the Committee secretariat and all Groups signed up to it nobody now wants to concede it may not be accurate. It is rather annoying that they say ‘it is only an own initiative report’. I reply that it is no excuse to be inaccurate! I have circulated a note, but since there will be objection from the floor if I put in an oral amendment there is really no point. Trying to delete the paragraph will be misinterpreted as an attack on an idealistic point, so in the end I will probably give up on this and satisfy myself with correcting the patent bits. I decide to concentrate my speech on three of the things that have been included in the report from my ECON opinion and to deal with the patent issue. Dealing with this issue and other emails and correspondence takes me up to time for Group.

19.00 Group meeting. We have an exchange of views with Gary Kasparov on the political situation in Russia. It is very interesting indeed and he is a good speaker.

21.00 Into the hemicycle for the debate on the Donnici credentials. I have agreed not to speak. All the speakers in the debate are Italian and they remain more deferential to the dignity of the legal affairs committee than I feel inclined to be on this matter. Gargarni gives a rather better presentation that he has in committee on the subject – just as well as this is public and not in camera. However I still believe it fatally flawed. Here is the gist of the affair as I understand it. I have dubbed it the Donnici code because it is a bit unbelievable.

The Donnici Code. At the time of the Italian elections for the European Parliament one candidate, Orchetto who would have been elected as an MEP, withdrew. At that time he was already a member of the Italian Senate, which he would have had to resign in order to take up the MEP seat. Further he was on a composite list of opposition candidates (everyone except Berlusconi’s party) and as is common practice in Italy famous people go at the top of a list to indicate the type of list, but there are agreements that they will withdraw. Later on after the Italian General Election when some MEPs gave up their seats to go to the national Parliament, Orchetto changed his mind about being an MEP and withdrew his withdrawal which was agreed was possible by the Italian initial court. This prevented Donnici, who was next in line, from becoming an MEP. Donnici objected both to the European Parliament and to the appeal court in Italy.

In the Parliament the legal affairs committee approved the credentials of Orchetto (that is turning down Donnici’s objection) it seems among other things on the basis that it is necessary to follow the ruling of a member state on who is an MEP. But then the Italian Supreme Court upheld Donnici’s complaint and ruled that it was not possible to withdraw a withdrawal and therefore the correct MEP was in fact Donnici and the European Parliament was informed.

At this stage it seemed as if it would then be a routine matter to reapply the logic that approved Orchetto, i.e that the Member State ruling applies. In accordance with tradition, and because approval of credentials is not normally controversial, Gargarni, the chair of the legal affairs committee undertook the rapporteurship. He then constructed an argument that Orchetto should remain an MEP.

As far as I am able to sensibly interpret the presentation (which as I have said was much better in plenary than at the in camera committee stage) it is broadly that the Italian court did not take into account EU law and therefore the only mechanism to get that taken into account is to get it reviewed by the ECJ. The refusal to approve credentials does that in that both the Italian State and Donnici can take the European Parliament to the ECJ.

So that is the proposed ‘mechanism’ and I suppose it has some logic. However it seems to me that the EU law that it is alleged has not been taken into account is not relevant and the interpretation argued to make it to make it relevant is distinctly dodgy. It essentially defines a candidate on a list as a potential MEP, then applies rules for ‘not mandating an MEP’ to the potential MEP and stretched the not mandating (which I had assumed meant instructing how to vote) to any withdrawal agreement or agreement about resigning from a list.

Now I can fully understand the Italian MEPs wishing in general to get rid of their list deals for future elections, I do not think it is fair to use this as the excuse to try and extract a comment upon it from the ECJ. Anyhow that is just about the most favourable way I can express my views. [If you read on to tomorrow when we vote you will see that Graham Watson, our ALDE Group leader says ‘see you in court.]’

22.00 ish Back to the plenary for the Innovation debate. I am too tired to stay to the end so I leave after my speech. Then back to my hotel.

Gierek, Votes, AmCham

2007-05-22T04:01:00.000-07:00

8.00 Our Lib Dem Parliamentary Party breakfast.

9.00 Working Group B. We are discussing the Gierek innovation report. I point out that I want to vote differently to our shadow and in general the meeting is with me but the shadow is not there so we do not actually take a decision. I negotiate with the administrator of the committee who says he will check it out with Toia, the shadow and come back to me. I say that if we can not agree it has to go to Group.

11.00 Back to the office. Some so-called compromise amendments on the report on the financial services white paper have come in. They look more like compilations than compromises. Many of my amendments have been presented in a way that more or less says notwithstanding (what Sharon Bowles says) it is the opposite. Amendments by John Purvis seem to have got the same treatment. I suppose this is only round 1, but we have a very short timescale given next week is a constituency week.

12.00 – 13.30 Votes. We all pile in, put our headsets on (usually with one ear listening to the hemicycle and one on the translation as it is the only way to put your hand up at the right time otherwise by the time the translation comes through a late yes looks like a no). Someone starts to speak and then I suddenly realise I can not understand and fiddle with my translation channel. Danuta is doing the same, then others and I discover we have all picked up earphones of the next place along. After headset swap along the row we all settle down again.

14.15 Meeting with AmCham (American Chamber of Commerce) financial services people. Most of these I know and see regularly, but it is useful to have a collective meeting. We discuss general issues of supervision, Solvency ll, payments and the white paper on financial services and various other things.

15.15 I go to pick up my flight tickets for trip to Lisbon at the start of the Portugese Presidency.

16.00 Do radio interview with Quadrant on roaming charges.

17.00 Meeting with Royal and Sun Alliance about Solvency ll issues.

18.30 Go to Group where Italian prime Minister Prodi is speaking to us. During the meeting our administrator comes over with Toia’s comments on my voting suggestions. With a bit of toing and froing we reach agreement. Group meeting then continues. I leave at about 8pm in order to collect together all the financial services papers ready for compromise meeting in the morning and take them back to my hotel. It is suggested that maybe I would like to speak in the debate on Donnici. I readily agree. I think it would be good if some non-Italians speak.

Getting ready for the week ahead

2007-05-21T03:59:00.000-07:00

5.30 Off to Luton airport. I am told by some of my fellow travellers that in September this flight is being discontinued. So I will have to find another plan. Seems as though the return flight will be at an earlier time (which will be good) but I will probably have to switch to Heathrow or Stanstead outbound. When I get to Basle there is no car there to take me to the Parliament so I have to hang around for an hour to get the car picking people up from the Heathrow flight.

13.00 arrive in the office. Dot (my stagiere) is here this week to give her a taste of what it is like at the Strasbourg end of things before she leaves. In theory this is not a busy week for me in terms of reports for which I am responsible, but there seem to be committee meetings and compromise amendment meetings building up. We start to print out all the documents piling in for these meetings. There are some things in the Gierek report on innovation that I do not like and I get an email from EPP MEP Lehne asking my view on the same paragraphs. I agree deletion a good idea, then I also come up with some partial deletion options that may be better and less of an adversarial approach. People are already beginning to ask which shadow rapporteur am I going to ‘do over’ this week! Not really fair, but another good reason to try and find compromise on partial deletions.

15.30 – 17.00 Group meeting. There have been elections for the European Parliament in Bulgaria so our colleagues who were the interim ‘appointed’ observers/MEPs now depart and are replaced by new people, all except one who stood in the elections and is returning and another who looks the same but turns out to be the identical twin brother!

17.30 The Lib Dem Parliamentary Party meeting. Nothing beyond ordinary discussion of upcoming votes. This session we will be voting on the outcome of the ‘accelerated second reading’ procedure on roaming changes for mobile phone calls. We are generally happy with the result, within the context of having to regulate being necessary in view of market failure. The safety ‘Eurotariff’ will be offered to all customers. Those that do not reply will be switched to it unless they have already negotiated a different roaming package, which some regular travellers may have done. This is not quite opt-in or opt-out, a bit more of a hoki-koki in out and shake it all about as Fiona put it! However it seems workable.

18.00 Back to the office to pick up papers for JURI (legal affairs) committee meeting on the Donnici affair again. A resolution has now been drafted, which I think is completely wrong in its logic

19.00 Legal affairs committee. The discussions proceed much as before with us and the UEN saying the conclusions do not make sense. We insist that we want a debate in plenary. We eventually take a vote and the resolution is passed. Not sure whether we have got a plenary debate or not, I guess it will go the Parliament bureau or Presidents or something like that to decide.

21.00 ECON committee with vote on postal services. Get to hotel at about 10.30

21st to 24 May 2007 Strasbourg Plenary session.

2007-05-21T03:58:00.000-07:00

Group Meeting on Kashmir

2007-05-16T03:58:00.000-07:00

9.00 – 12.30 Arrive in office and go straight down to Group meeting for Kashmir discussion and other issues. After that it is tidy up time in the office, packing the trunk for Strasbourg next week. The Parliament is closed tomorrow. I head off at 2pm for Eurostar which means I will get to London in time to go the Parliamentary Party meeting in Westminster. I have not managed to get back on a Wednesday for some time so this is useful.

Kashmir, Credit Suisse, final Conciliation on Rome II

2007-05-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

9.00 Get to the office. For once I do not seem to have a deadline upon me so I can look at various papers ready for speaking this evening to the Federation of Small Businesses at their South East policy unit dinner. Or at least that is how it starts! I then get a request from Diana’s office about whether I can attend the final conciliation meeting on Rome ll which could go on all evening until midnight. We try to see if anyone else is available, but they are not so I have to tell the FSB that duty calls. This will be my first conciliation, so it will be interesting.

13.00 LDEPP. Again a relatively routine agenda. The big issue is Kashmir, but we will resolve that in Group.

14.00 The EP FSF are holding their first annual forum on solvency ll. I go along to the first part. I can not stay for all of it as I have other appointments.

16.00 I have a meeting with Credit Suisse about the detention in Romania of one of their employees who was responsible for some of the privatisations in Romania. They were also going to see Sarah but as I have also invited some Romanian colleagues we decide to have one big meeting in my office. The main problem is one of due process in that it could take 5 or 6 years for the case to get to court. Anyway, Sarah and I decide to write to Commissioner Frattini and ask for a meeting next week.

17.00 Group. We discuss the Kashmir report. We manage to get an amendment tabled that says the inability to meet conditions for a plebiscite now does not rule it out for the future. We also discuss the new format of Parliamentary timetable proposed for next year. There are more non Brussels weeks so as to allow for delegation visits but some of us are concerned this will cause our ‘constituency’ weeks to get filled up with travel instead of being able to do constituency work. The other weeks are all mixed up more. In theory it gives more committee time. I am a bit concerned that it leaves very little time for working on reports etc.

19.00 Back to the office. I definitely have to do the conciliation. Diana is optimistic it will not take too long, others less so. It seems to me that all the times that have been submitted in the sweepstake on how long it will last are over optimistic.

20.00 We are all downstairs on level 5 where two committee rooms are being used for the Conciliation. The Council are in one room in ‘trilogue’ discussions with Diana Wallis (Rapporteur for the Parliament on Rome ll) and the Commission. The Parliament conciliation committee has another room, we also have some Commission people with us. Diana come to us and explains where we have got to and asks for a negotiating mandate within a range of options that she thinks the parliament could accept. Some advice/assistance on support for some wording is also sought from Commissioner Frattini who is in with us.

20.40 Diana heads back to do battle with the Council. The rest of us are invited to hang around. An impressive array of sandwiches, fruit and drinks is laid on which is replenished constantly. Some people go back to their offices waiting to be rung when it is time to reconvene (which could be at any time and several times), I intend to do that but actually find quite a few people I want to talk to are their from both the Parliament and Commission so end up having useful discussions instead.

23.05 Diana has emerged from the Council so we now reconvene in our room and discuss the latest state of affairs. We really are down to haggling over a few words and messengers are sent from one room to another and back. Eventually all is agreed and we take a vote. Then we go and join the Council in their room and formally agree that we have agreed. We all escape at about midnight. Apparently as these things go it was not too bad, there have been instances of negotiations going on until 3 in the morning in Luxembourg and then the Parliament people being shoved on a coach, driven to Brussels and dumped somewhere in the city centre in the early hours.

Accountants Dinner

2007-05-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

2.30 Leave for airport. This is a short week in Brussels as my only event today is speaking at a dinner at 7.30 pm with a visiting group of chartered accountants from the South East. This is useful; as it gives me the morning to catch up on things in the UK offices. I arrive just about in time to dump my suitcase and go off to the dinner.

14 – 16 May Group week

2007-05-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

Fruit farms in Kent

2007-05-11T03:52:00.000-07:00

8.30 Go to office, collect papers then head for Eurostar. We visit two fruit farms in Kent and look at their packing operations. Then return home. Get home late evening.

Postponed vote, so a day of paperwork

2007-05-10T03:36:00.000-07:00

9.30 Get to office. Continue work on the statistics report.

11.00 – 13.00 Votes. The vote on alcohol duty is postponed.

13.15 Back to the office. The report is finalised and dispatched. I am staying in Brussels tonight as we have farm visits tomorrow for which we are being picked up at Ashford from the morning Eurostar. Somehow the afternoon gets used up with purchase of tickets and generally marshalling other work and papers for the next round of topics.

Donnici, Group and Labour Law

2007-05-09T03:31:00.000-07:00

8.30 LDEPP. Nothing special.

9.00 I go to working Group for the discussion on excise duty. We agree to have three different voting lines. This is going to make my life as Lib Dem whip a little more complicated.

9.30 Back to my office. Meetings this morning that were scheduled on the audio visual media service have been cancelled as a deal has been reached, so I am able to continue work on amendments of labour law, for which I have just realised I am the shadow! I thought I was just poking my nose in again. Then I start work on my report on the establishment of a statistics board that is due in tomorrow. I have already made lots of notes so it is really a matter of joining them up and deciding on amendments.

10.30 Group. We have been organising proxy votes again to support Andrew Duff on a couple of amendments to do with institutional provisions and holding an intergovernmental conference. The suggestion is made that there seem to be two lines (to have the conferences or not) and the shadow suggests a free vote, but confident in our fire power Andrew presses for a vote to establish our line to have the conferences, which we duly win.

We also discuss the French elections and the moving on the war monument in Estonia and the retaliatory attacks on the Estonian Embassy and whether this should influence our support for the EU Russia summit. We agree that our line should be that the summit should be postponed, and so we will withdraw from the joint resolution in consequence. [After group I send an email indicating one section in the resolution that I am not happy with and I propose an oral amendment, but as we are withdrawing they suggest we would not succeed. We then eventually abstain on the final vote, so actually I would have preferred my amendment].

We also discuss the ongoing saga of the ‘approval of credentials’ of our new member Donnici. There was a second meeting last Thursday at which the matter was pushed to a vote. Graham was there and was kept waiting over an hour to speak and felt that the chair just hung about until he had all the EPP voters there. I suppose he was after numbers, given that only four (including our two votes) voted in favour. I spoke indicating what a travesty I thought the process was and that I thought it brought the Parliament into disrepute. It will certainly end up in the ECJ. I think the words that Poettering used when he announced Donnici in plenary somehow forecast that.

12.30 Back to the office and more work on the statistics board report.

15.30 I have a meeting in the ‘Mickey Mouse’ bar with a group of Barclays people over for briefings and the opening of their new office. Before they arrive I have time for a brief chat with the Pakistani Ambassador and some Pakistan Parliamentarians who are visiting because of the Kashmir report. They thank me for my work. With Barclays we run through the various live ECON issues.

16.15 Return to work on my report and get so carried away with it that I forget to go to the reception for the opening of the Barclay’s Brussels office. Go back to the flat at about 8.30.

ECN, Solvency II and Equitable Life comes to the vote

2007-05-08T03:29:00.000-07:00

8.30 Leave to get to the Parliament in time for the start of ECON committee, but have a chance meeting with the Concierge and make arrangements to purchase cleaning equipment for the flat. Get to ECON and there is a discussion on the financial services White Paper followed by votes at 10.00.

12.45 I am chairing the European Parliament Financial Services Forum lunch discussion on Solvency ll. It seems to go quite well.

15.00 Into the Equitable Life Committee for the final vote. This goes well and we finish just in time for me to trot off to the far end of Rue Luxembourg to meet with the Association of Swedish Patent Attorneys at 4pm.

17.30 Back to ECON to discuss my draft report on the attachment of bank accounts.

19.00 Into the office and work on amendments for the opinion on modernising labour
law.

CEIOPS

2007-05-07T03:27:00.000-07:00

10.00 Leave for Heathrow. The plane is again on time and I get to Parliament by 3.00pm. I check on documents for the session that I am chairing tomorrow, I dash over to my flat to dump my suitcase, then go to the ECON Committee.

17.00 We have the annual presentation from the chair of CEIOPS (Insurance supervisors) which is now Thomas Steffen. He says that 70% of the capacity of CEIOPS is taken up with issues relating to Solvency ll. He points out that the notion of Group supervision actually comes from current practice rather than Solvency ll. He says they are discussing how to take on board the point in the Equitable Life enquiry and also how to better utilise the ombudsman financial network, Fin Net. He sees consumer protection as a major objective.

I am not sure that this is exactly the same as the Commission view in that they have not put compensation into Solvency ll. It seems to me that even if compensation is not put in, so as not to overburden the directive, some kind of indication that it is being addressed through separate measures will be called for. In the discussion that follows it also seems that the impact studies are extending into the future and several MEPs observe that if the directive is to be completed in this mandate they can not recede off any further.

19.15 Committee ends at 7pm and after a few more bits of paperwork Carol and I head off to the dinner with CEIOPS that they have invited the Solvency ll rapporteurs to. There are several of the supervisors there and it is quite an interesting discussion.

7 May – 10 May 2007

2007-05-07T03:26:00.000-07:00

Mini Plenary Week

Debate on Donnici

2007-05-02T03:19:00.000-07:00

I am lucky this week as the ECON committee is not having any meetings, I have nothing of mine on JURI and I had kept the rest of the diary free so that I could be in the UK for the elections. Of course the best laid plans do not work out perfectly and I had to do an emergency dash to Brussels to attend a meeting this afternoon to deal with the credentials of new MEP Donnici. He is there today to address the meeting.

Frankly I was appalled at the conduct of the meeting. The story is that in Italy the supreme Court has ruled that Donnici was in fact the proper MEP, but the majority of the Committee seems to be deluding itself into thinking they have a right to over-rule the decision of the court (which is all about whether the MEP he is to replace had in fact withdrawn). The correct reading of all the documents as far as I can see and all the precedents are that the Member States have the final say, provided it is all legally correct as far as the Member State law is concerned, which is obviously the case here. The Parliament’s legal services agree.

The chair Gargrni tried to push it to a vote, saying the legal opinion is not all that important as it is a political decision. (!!!) Diana Wallis got the vote deferred on the basis that the opinion of the legal services had not been circulated. At least members should be shown to have known what they were disregarding. The vote will be tomorrow, so I will not be there but we will be able to have someone else there in my place. At least I was there today when Donnici came. Now back to the UK for more footslogging.

30 April to 3 May 2007

2007-04-30T03:05:00.000-07:00

Committee Week – Local elections in UK

Meetings and votes round off the week

2007-04-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

8.30 Arrive in office then go to out ALDE ECON prep meeting. We are now having meetings with Italian translation, but our Italian members are not there. We decide to change the format again and go back to having an informal breakfast meeting followed by our more formal meeting, all on Strasbourg Thursdays.

9.45 Back to the office and I have another telephone discussion on statistics.

11.00 Yet another meeting, this time with the UK advisor from the Patent Office. This is really so we can update one another on how we think things are being perceived. He was present for my presentations at the conference in Berlin just before Easter.

12.00 Votes, including my report on PPP which goes through as expected.

13.00 Back to the office and begin the clear up and packing.

16.30 Go to meet a visitor Group.

17.30 Type up some more thoughts for the statistics paper, tend to emails and then go to get my car to Basle at 7pm. Get home at about midnight UK time which my body now thinks is 1am. A week of campaigning now beckons with the local elections next Thursday.

Another record breaking voting session!

2007-04-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

9.30 Arrive in the office and spend the morning on voting lists. Amidst all the work on my own dossiers and speeches we are still having to do the whip's job of checking all the voting lists and getting information in from colleagues.

11.00 I do a radio interview on payments.

11.30 Votes start. We apparently have another biggest ever voting session with 827 votes to take. This includes lots on criminal sanctions, which by about 100 votes goes the wrong way for me so we vote against at the end, but it is passed by about 100 votes. The voting list is marked to follow my lead. I did get one useful amendment in, but it is over to the council and national governments now. Damages actions is also voted and everything goes as planned and the EPP are outvoted. There is a break in the voting session for an address by the Indian Prime Minister, which is interesting and unusual in content. We do not finish voting until just before 2pm.

14.00 Straight to my office for a meeting with Microsoft. We discuss competition policy, the latest communication to Microsoft from the Commission, criminal sanctions and EPLA.

15.00 Another meeting, this time with the European Digital media association on Rome 1.

16.00 I have a telephone discussion with Tony Clayton about the Statistics Advisory Board. This gives me useful background information about how the statistical system works.

17.00 We get summoned to go to plenary by Sarah as there is an attempt to vote out the homophobia resolution from the agenda. Reasonable numbers of us turn up and the vote is won to keep it in the agenda.

17.30 I do a television interview on criminal sanctions.

18.00 Back to the office, start clearing away redundant papers and contemplate a joint draft letter to the commission on the audio visual media directive. Have quick discussion on this with Sayeed Kamall, then go down to Group at 7pm. Stay to the end when we have an update from Ignasi on the latest on the audio visual media directive. Leave at 21.00 and after getting back to my hotel go on a walkabout for half an hour to remind myself that there is such a thing as outside.

Criminal Sanctions disagreements

2007-04-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

10.00 Arrive in the Parliament after a small detour because the chauffer goes to the wrong side of the river for my entrance. We are having a meeting on the voting list for Criminal Sanctions at 10.30 with others in the Group who have taken an interest. I have done my preferred list. On the way over I see Toine, who is the shadow for the sublect, walking in the opposite direction with Commissioner Kroes, which is bad news as it means he will not be joining us. We have our meeting and it seems that Ignasi, Marco and I have broadly similar thinking. The differences that we do have stem from the different ways legal systems work in different countries, which is half the problem with the criminal sanctions proposals. Anyway, we agree between ourselves and will take our line to Group tonight. I will see if I can find Toine before then as he is not going to like our conclusions and I regret that he was not present.

11.45 I head over to the hemicycle for votes. We are voting on payments today. There is to be an oral amendment to put a data protection bit in the resolution, providing that first we have rejected the amendment. This keeps it out of the directive and seems a good compromise. The ECON chair Pervench Beres is to move it and has the sense to let everyone know before the votes. The hard line civil liberties members of ALDE still ignore my voting list and vote for the amendment, but the amendment is rejected and then the oral amendment passed. It is a very small number of votes for just a big portfolio, because everything is voted en bloc, so the rapporteur does not get the amount of applause he deserves. We should have made them take 800 votes: then maybe they would have applauded more!

13.15 We have a photo-opp with cricket bats and balls, on the problems in Sri Lanka. This causes interest among continental media and so Sarah and Saj play cricket to show them (Sarah hits the ball too far and into a camera crew but fortunately the balls are soft).

14.00 We have a JURI extraordinary meeting on verification of credentials. This is all about ensuring everything is correct about new members papers etc. Sometimes it is not as straightforward who substitutes should be. There has been a court case in Italy over who should be the replacement for Di Pietro when he joined the Italian Government.

15.00 We have a press conference on payments.

16.00 Back to the office. I have a meeting at 4.30 with Sanchez Presado the rapporteur on damages actions. He has not been able to reach any agreement yet with the EPP. I agree with him some possible compromises and split votes and he goes off for another try.

17.00 Back to paperwork and voting lists and emails. I try to find Toine but do not succeed until just before the group meeting, by which time he has had an email of the voting preferences from this morning’s meeting. Needless to say he is not happy.

19.00 Group meeting. We get on to the criminal sanctions and Toine indicates his displeasure. I want to let the debate get underway before I intervene so I let Ignasi speak first from our side but he is preceded by our Bulgarian vice-chair who says there have been demonstrations in Bulgaria. The demonstrations concern the panic about the prospect of the directive criminalising individuals for private copying, but it is already pretty well unanimously agreed that will be taken out. When it is my turn I give a bit more explanation of the wider picture, the different conditions in member states, why it should not cover all intellectual property but only copyright and trademarks (as the most closely related to counterfeiting and piracy) and how we have come to a least bad compromise between ourselves on the available amendments. I think most are able to follow the arguments. We get to a vote and win our line reasonably comfortably. After Group I leave at 9.30 and the driver (a different one) gets lost again.

Speeches!

2007-04-23T09:52:00.001-07:00

5.30 Leave for Luton airport. The plane lands early and I get to the Parliament in Strasbourg by 11.30. As usual I am in well ahead of everyone else so I can get to work on my speeches and amendments. I have three speeches to do today. Also, on Friday we discovered that the GUE group had put an amendment in to the Payment Services Directive broadly the same as the one I persuaded ALDE not to put in. This means I will have to revisit the whole matter again. I decide that I will say something in my speech, which rather ironically is probably going to be at just the time when it might be discussed in the working group. I check the wording of the amendment again and the final text agreed with Council, and I am not convinced the amendment is in the right place anyway. Anyway, as before, my line will be that I agree with the principle of the amendment but it is a bigger issue than just payments.

15.30 Group meeting. Nothing spectacular, just updates and I then leave before the end because plenary is due to start at 17.00.

16.45 Head over to the hemicycle. Talk to some media people on the way. They want to know what I think about an issue of including inland waterways in shipping insurance compensation requirements. Typical, I do three speeches today and they want to know about something else.

Plenary starts and I get a small surprise when it is announced that the ALDE group have asked to delay the vote on my PPP report until Thursday, so I get up and explain that it is because we only got the legal opinion on comitology last Friday and have some final checks to make. (Later Titus our administrator says to Carol perhaps he should have warned me…). There is much to-ing an fro-ing among those involved in the payments portfolio. It is suggested to me that whether there is a majority for it depends upon our votes. I am pleased we had the discussion in Group last week, I just hope it holds and is not reopened in my absence.

The debate starts a bit late and I discover that my success last week in not tabling the amendment has not been reopened in Group so my voting list in which I have marked a vote against the GUE amendment is approved. I do my speech and at the end clarify that I persuaded our Group not to submit a similar amendment, that if it comes to it a vote against the amendment is not a vote against the underlying principle and that I hope it can be handled in another way. I think this probably increases the pressure for another way to be found.

19.00 We are having an ECON committee meeting. First is the ECB annual report. I get there for that, but leave at 7.30 because I am due on for my second speech of the day in plenary. This is on Criminal Sanctions for Intellectual Property. I have decided that unless my amendments pass, or the one from the Greens restricting the scope, then I will be voting against the directive irrespective of what the group line will be. Given this is about something where I have had professional experience for over 25 years, I can not desert my personal expertise. The Law Society also agrees with me on this, as does the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys and, it has to be said, the UK Government. Unfortunately it is unlikely that our shadow will take the same view. Anyway, I say my bit and make it clear that the whole thing should be restricted to counterfeiting and piracy, organised crime and risk to health and safety. Debates are already running late so my third speech, originally scheduled for around 10.30 is now moving towards midnight.

21.00 Back in the office working on papers, doing press releases, notes for colleagues and voting lists and generally filling in time until the start of the last debate. Having to speak late on a Monday, when getting up at 4 in the morning is beginning to feel like a cruel and unusual punishment. Hasn’t anyone here heard of the working time directive?

23.00 I go to plenary. Our debate on damages actions eventually starts about 23.25. I think Commissioner Kroes does a good introduction. I say that when this all started I felt like a latter day Cassandra, only unlike Cassandra notice has been taken of what I have said and that, even if gently, it is embedded in the report. It is rather too gently for the EPP, so it looks like it will be a battle of votes not a broader compromise deal. But the rapporteur and the Commissioner offer to be open for discussions. The Commissioner’s summing up is also very good, acknowledging that the devil will be in the detail – a phrase I nearly used in my own speech. We finish at ten past midnight. I get a car to my hotel and check in at half past midnight. I am by now well into my second wind and not at all tired. I have already made the decision that I am not going to our 8am Lib Dem breakfast.

23rd to 26th April Strasbourg

2007-04-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Packing for the trip home

2007-04-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

9.15 Arrive at the office with my huge suitcase. I need it for taking back a vast number of letters that we have printed and stuffed. There is then no room left for the suits I will need in Strasbourg so I stuff them into my trunk as well. It will be a bit problematical if my trunk goes walkabout now as sometimes happens. After completing the packing of trunk and suitcase I turn again to various amendments. We are then contacted by the tabling office about the language of the compromise amendments on damages actions. The rapporteur says he is happy for me to resolve the problem. There is one place where there was some awkward English that I had left because it was clearer than the alternative, which the tabling office now proposes. I find a clearer third suggestion.

12.15 I meet with people from FFII. I had replied to one of their emails to explain how my amendments dealt with some of the same concerns that they had. We have a useful exchange on a range of issues.

13.50 I leave with my huge and heavy suitcase to get the Eurostar. I am going to have problems with this when I get to the London end and all the steps…. The weekend now beckons with visits to Lewes and Eastbourne

Payments, Audio Visual Media Services

2007-04-18T09:47:00.000-07:00

9.00 I get to the office. I go down to group to make a few notes about what I want to say about Payments before I am due to speak. Carol has been busy getting in the proxy votes from the UK delegation. I am having Wolff Klinz vote for payments. Not usual to give proxies to another countries’ MEP but he wants to make it clear he supports my line. After I do my presentation Alexander Alvaro presents the amendment. This then seems to get support from Graham in the chair as he asks are we not having the wool pulled over us in that it would upset the package. I then give a comprehensive reply dealing with the SWIFT issue and the data protection directive, whether the amendment properly has a place in the payments directive and what it would mean to reject the amendment should we subsequently wish to run it as a separate issue. We then vote. The civil liberties side have organised proxies too. However I seem to have won support on the arguments so the amendment is not approved.

12.00 Back to the office. I draft my opinion on attachment of bank accounts.

14.30 We have a meeting on the audio visual media services. There are still some issues that are not quite satisfactory but there is quite a common consensus of opinion among the various parliamentarians there. We are possibly embarking on an ‘accelerated second reading’ procedure where we agree everything with the Council. If we do not agree and go to a full second reading the Council are threatening to back track to their November position. After the meeting I have a discussion with Chris Heaton-Harris and Sayeed Kamell about advertising braks in children's programs as we have all raised the point again. In the end we think that it is just about workable given that there are usually significant advert breaks at the half hour which can accommodate the extra few seconds that are needed to take a scheduled slot for half an hour and no break allowed to half an hour and a few seconds when a break is allowed.

16.00 Back to the office. I have a meeting at 4.30 with the Alternative Investment Management Association for whom I am co-hosting a lunch on June 12th. We discuss the issues that we think should be raised. The purpose of such a lunch is to provide information and an opportunity for MEPs to question industry experts. I also have a dinner I am sponsoring on June 12th – I can remember this as it is my birthday so bang goes any idea of keeping part of it free!!

17.30 I commence the tidying up and dealing with odds and ends and start heaping papers into my Strasbourg trunk. Leave at 7.30

"Sharon's hour"

2007-04-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

9.00 Arrive at the office. There are alarms and excursions going on concerning the proposed amendment to the Payment Services Directive. We are told that a rumour is being spread that in any case the European Banking Federation do not like the package. We know that is not true so we take steps to make sure the truth is known. There are also some final tweaks on Purchasing Price Parities to do.

9.30 I have a meeting with Dr Thomas Steffen the director of the German Financial Services regulator (Bafin). We have a wide ranging discussion on various issues linked to Solvency ll and the issues that it raises, including guarantee schemes, transparency, group supervision and independence and liability of supervisors.

11.00 Toine Manders’ assistant comes to see me about amendments on criminal sanctions. We agree on what we are each going to table to group. I then pop down to check on what is going on in Working group C, which deals with the international affairs issues.

12.30 Our Lib Dem Parliamentary Party meeting and once again I am in the chair. We discuss possible controversies in the Strasbourg agenda and agree the sharing out of cover for checking votes.

14.30 Working Group A, which deals with all the ECON and JURI issues. Carol has dubbed this ‘Sharon’s hour’ because I seem to be the lead person on everything. Payments is going to Group, so we do not deal with it here. We reach agreement on Purchasing Price Parities and damages actions. On criminal sanctions I have amendments that do the same sort of thing as those of Marco Capparti and I am charged with making a composite.

15.30 Back to the office. I work on the composites.

16.00 I have a meeting with representative from UEFA. This is really to catch up on where the Audio Visual Media services directive has got to in Council. It seems that in Council they are finally getting round to understanding that my solution on short news reports is the only one that is compatible with other copyright legislation (hooray at last). Then finish the composites and also do some more tweaking on the language of the damages amendments.

17.30 I go down to Group. I have a quick chat with Alexander Alvaro about the proposed amendment to Payments. He says they had not realised the precariousness of the situation. I joke that I will direct the entire wrath from the German Banks towards him. He says he cannot withdraw the amendment because it is supported by Sophie and Sarah who are in the US. I confirm that Marco is happy with the composite amendments and they are signed off.

18.30 I go back to the office. I then start to look at the papers on attachment of bank accounts for which I have to draft an opinion this week. I have already looked at these over the weekend. Leave at about 7.30 taking the attachment papers for homework.

Intellectual Property, Damages Actions and Payments

2007-04-16T09:43:00.001-07:00

10.30 Leave for Heathrow. I have already had telephone conversations with Carol in Brussels to confirm wording of an amendment to the Equitable Life report which is due in by noon (11 am our time). We land early in Brussels so I get to Parliament by just after 3pm. I immediately start work on more amendments for the directive on criminal sanctions for intellectual property. This is being voted in Strasbourg next week so I have to get the amendments approved by the Group this week.

16.30 Sanchez Presedo the Rapporteur on the damages action report comes to see me. He starts by saying “I have come to see you about your report – after all it is now more yours!”. It is true I controlled the voting in committee but we had actually reached agreement on most of my changes anyway. He now wants to reincorporate two things that were deleted in the committee votes. One is ok because it was lost because the socialists were too slow to vote. The other we voted against because the language was confused and it had slipped my notice. However I am now able to agree how to change it so that it fits in with everything else.

17.15 We have been alerted to an amendment that our Civil Liberties colleagues want to put to the payments directive. It is about SWIFT. The content I can agree in sentiment but I do not think it has a place in the directive, especially at this stage, and as it is of wider significance it is hard to see how any rapid agreement on it, or indeed practical implementation, could be reached, and so if it were passed it would also cause the package to fail. I send out a few emails of explanation. I am reluctant to argue it just on the basis of ‘the package’ agreed with Council but think I have to make sure the significance is appreciated. Leave at about 7.45pm taking various papers with me.

16th – 19th April Group Week

2007-04-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

Roaming Votes

2007-04-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

7.45 Arrive in the office for my interview. We continue with checking the votes and I assemble my papers for going to Croatia this afternoon for the ELDR Council meeting.

10.30 Votes in Industry on roaming. It all goes pretty well. Lots of member leave afterwards so we are down to about 30 instead of 50 voting on the innovation report. That is mixed. Votes take until 12.45

13.00 Interview on roaming with Quadrant radio

13.15 start to write up notes on the advisory board. The do the forthcoming diary events check and leave for the airport at 3pm.

Equitable life, Statistics and Communications

2007-04-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

8.30 Arrive in the office. Sort out papers and head for the JURI committee. Votes are due at 9.30 but are delayed. Eventually I leave because the Equitable life committee of Enquiry has a discussion on its report which is more important. Anyway, I know that the EPP are supporting a few of my amendments in JURI to the innovation report which will carry them whether I am there or not. The others that they do not support will fall whether I am there or not!

10.15 Arrive in the Equitable life committee. Peter Skinner is speaking about what was meant to be confidential after our last meeting and should there have been a press release from the rapporteur. We then move on to discussing the report which has been amended to include my and others comments during the informal amendment period. Most are content. Peter is not and seems to want more about Solvency ll (which I thought I had covered reasonably well) and makes some points about other directives that could be mentioned. Some of the Conservative members criticise Peter for being political, and in doing so are political themselves. I eventually intervene to point out the changes that have been made to introduce solvency ll and also say that we have to make sure (in ECON when we do the directive later this year) that it does solve all the problems that we are told it does. I am not yet 100% convinced that it does.

11.15 The ECON members of the Equitable life committee leave because we have a discussion in ECON now on solvency ll. A bit of a mad morning with three committees all doing relevant things.

12.45 The European Parliament Financial Services Forum lunch. This is on the EU-US dialogue. The main thrusts of the dialogue are on intellectual property, standards and financial services, so in many ways I am more involved than everyone else as I cover all three topics. However lunch is on the financial aspects.

14.30 Back to the office and a telephone conference with Radermacher of the German Presidency about the statistics directives. I tell him we are still awaiting the opinion of legal services on comitology but I am hoping it is as we agreed at our meeting. We then have a useful discussion on the purpose of the advisory board. I find this a more helpful than the discussions with the Commission were in terms of getting a handle on what is really intended. However this is probably largely due to the fact that I am more up to speed now. Additionally I have located a UK expert that I can also consult next week.

16.00 Meeting with members of GSM representing communication operators. They really wanted to know about payments, so I told them I expect the Presidency text as agreed by Council to be approved without any or much change by Parliament. They are happy with that. We also discussed that the e payements directive will now need to be brought in line, but that was always the intention. Seems to me the capital requirements in that were made too high by a factor of 10.

16.30 Meeting with Timothy baker of LIBA. We discuss financial services white paper and various other issues.

17.00 Tomorrow the industry committee votes on roaming and the innovation report and I have got myself a place as a substitute in the voting. The voting lists are long and compromise amendments are appearing so we start checking those. Media are very interested in roaming and I agree to do an interview with five live at 8am in the morning. Leave at 7pm

EPLA and committee preparations

2007-04-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

9.30 Arrive in office because I travelled to Brussels yesterday, as always seems to be necessary on our Bank holidays. This month we are having a second committee week so it is a little unusual, presumably because of the constituency weeks. This morning has been kept free for me to review again the legal services opinion on EPLA, which we are discussing this afternoon. However, the deadline for ECON committee amendments to the report on the financial services white paper is upon us at noon tomorrow so we start on that first. The draft report contains too much of the usual ‘rant’ against hedge funds and I have decided that it would be useful to draw attention to the difference between Europe, where there is already registration required and regulation of the mangers and brokers, and the US which remains predominantly unregulated. This adds a new dimension.

I then update my Berlin speech text with what I actually said as some people have been asking for it. Finally I settle to work on EPLA and write an outline of what I want to say in JURI about the opinion. I am assuming that the legal services will respond to the paper that I previously circulated so I can now introduce further points which I will need to give them in writing. Really I have too much that is specialist, and I worry that some will not be able to follow it, but it needs to be said so that everyone understands that a lot of the points made in the opinion are extreme views and debatable.

14.00 Go to the ECON prep meeting for our group. We review upcoming votes tomorrow, nothing controversial except for how to fix excise duty where we have free votes. I will have to miss votes because things that I am shadowing are being voted in JURI at the same time.

15.00 I go to the JURI meeting. We discuss EPLA. My points seem to go down well. We then vote on the JURI opinion on the financial services white paper. Two of my four amendments are passed.

17.00 I look in on the end of the ECON committee meeting then return to the office to complete work on votes for tomorrow in JURI and on the ECON amendments on the white paper. Leave at 8.00pm

April 10th – 12th Committee Week

2007-04-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Patent Conference

2007-03-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

9.00 Off to the Patent Conference. I am a panellist for the final session, but before that we have speeches from Industry and the President of the European Patent Office. The panel session goes well. I get the feeling that I am the most in tune with those attending.

Several of the patent attorneys, and Nicholas Pumfrey, come to me afterwards and say that I had done well and made things very clear. I am gratified for I can think of nothing worse than my former colleagues thinking I was doing a bad job!

Record breaking mini session?

2007-03-29T05:51:00.000-07:00

9.00 Arrive in the office and start to pack papers and tidy up. I may have to rush off for my plane to Berlin immediately after votes.

10.00 Interview with Ian Murray, editor of the Southern Daily Echo.

11.00 Go over to Plenary. Votes are delayed until 11.30 so I go for a coffee with Sarah.

11.30 Votes. Apparently this is the longest ever (or largest number of votes) in a mini session. Not sure whether he (chair) really means ever or just this session. Anyway well over 800 votes. Damages actions has been delayed until next time as well.

13.15 Get car to airport. At the airport meet up with Lehne and his assistant Sebastian and have useful chat on damages actions and a few other things. Our flight lands and we are whisked by car to the conference just in time for the final session at 5pm. Lehne is chairing one session. I go to another about EPLA at which UK patents judge Sir Nicholas Pumfrey is a contributor. There is a French Government representative and a French Industry representative and they have very different views. Industry effectively says ‘which bit of we want EPLA do you not understand?’ The evening is a reception at which there is useful networking.

Football Debate and Amendments

2007-03-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

8.30 I am in the chair for the Lib Dem Parliamentary party meeting. Nothing spectacular, just routine review of the upcoming business and staff positions.

9.00 Telephone discussion with the French Deputy Ambassador to the EU. He wanted to talk to me about patents before the Berlin Conference and we could not schedule a meeting so agreed to have this call to establish contact. Everyone is looking for solutions, and ways to work together, which is good but I am concerned that too much complexity will lead to failure.

9.30 I get to the working group meeting for the discussion of the football reports. Most of the amendments that we submitted have made their way into the compromises so we agree that some of ours can be withdrawn. Just about everything that I submitted is in the compromises, the bits that did not make it are not mine and I reckon of less importance. ALDE, and to a large extent myself, have 24 amendments and co-signed 25 compromises including our amendments. Out of 54 in total I reckon we have done our stuff.

11.00 Meeting with Andrew Cave of the Federation of Small Businesses. They are concerned about Rome 1, which also came up yesterday with UKREP. Seems I will have to look at this.

12.00 I have a photoshoot outside the Parliament.

12.30 Back to the office. I have speaking time in the football debate so start to work out what to say in that and the corresponding press release. Also start to gather papers and thoughts for my session at the Berlin Conference.

15.30 TV Interview with Jim Gibbons on football. Then back to the office and paperwork, keeping an eye on the debates. My speaking time, originally scheduled for around 6pm starts to slip later and later.

18.30 The group has a celebration reception for the EU 50 years. I do not stay long. My speaking time now scheduled for about 8.30pm.

21.30 The football debate finally gets started, I do my speech at about 22.20. Leave Parliament afterwards.

Damages Actions, Mazars missed

2007-03-27T05:24:00.000-07:00

8.00 Arrive in the office and continue with preparation work.

9.00 ECON. I am first on. Amongst other things I share my doubts about the creation of an oversight board unless in has some teeth and I say that it looks like the Council are trying to ensure it has no teeth. I see the ECON secretariat grinning somewhat and I wonder whether I have been a bit blunt. Ike van den Burg talks about the advisory committee, for which she is rapporteur. She says she agrees with my reservations about the board but does not sound quite so blunt as me. I had hoped not to stick with the original tight timetable and we have amendments set for 16 May. It is agreed we will try to talk to the Commission next Strasbourg and to have some feedback on what is done in the US. I suppose if we do not get a clearer picture I will have to compile amendments that give the Board more teeth and then see who squeals.

11.00 Meeting with the UK Permanent Representative people who do the JURI Committee things. This is really just an introduction now I am formally on the committee so we chat about various ongoing and upcoming issues in general terms.

12.00 I go to speak to a visitors Group from the University of Portsmouth. I do the first half hour then Caroline Lucas takes over for the second half.

12.30 Back to the office. We should be going to the ALDE Prep meeting but there are still a few bits to sort out for this afternoon so I skip it.

13.20 I arrive, late, for the Kangaroo Group Lunch meeting on the modernised customs code. I decided to go to this as it might be useful background to fiscal fraud. It is a bit marginal as to whether that is the case. The most interesting fact seems to be that in some countries the customs clearance paperwork still seems to be a bit of a closed shop/family businesses, unless I misunderstood (meeting partly in French). I will check sometime with Janelly Fortou who is the rapporteur.

15.00 ECON. We have votes first. The damages actions is completely controlled by our votes. The EPP are on the losing side (unusual for them). My innovation votes also go well, although I lose two amendments possibly because they have not been understood. However, they are in for JURI as well and I will talk to EPP members about them just to check. Sanches Presaro comes to speak to me after the damages actions votes. One vote to delete a paragraph is lost but then the paragraph is not voted for so it falls after all! They want to check that I agree that is what happened.

I said yes and I thought it was because hands did not go up fast enough (especially in the PES). Sanches Presaro hopes to make some amendments to try and get the EPP in more agreement at plenary. I explain that it may not be easy because where they had delete options I had already put in the ‘softer’ amendments. However, there may be a few things.

Charlie McCreevy arrives to answer questions in ECON. I did not ask a question as I had put them in JURI last week, however some of what I had asked there is repeated repeated by others. There is also a bit of report back on payments which was agreed in ECOFIN this morning. McCreevy very much on form. When quizzed by Radwan and Hoppenstedt on hedge funds, they said he had not said anything about them, he replied and said he had said plenty it was just that they had not liked what he had said! He then went on to repeat what he has previously said and which, allegedly, they must not have liked.

I could not help but smirk for it was so true, we have been told before. At the very end of the session Pervenche Beres quizzed again quite aggressively (Carol said afterwards she felt quite sorry for McCreevy) but McCreevy was a real pro taking out all the sting with humorous flattery - saying that Pervenche had just shown what a good candidate she would have made in certain French elections (Presidential elections) - before addressing the points she raised.

18.00 Back to the office. ECON has gone on so long I will miss the Mazars seminar on corporate accountability that I was hoping to get to. Not really vital but I was going to go because I was instrumental in appointing Mazars as the Lib Dems auditors some years ago when I was on the Federal Finance Committee. I recall we chose them because they had really got to grips with how difficult it would be to make all units of political parties comply with the (then) new financial reporting. I continue with paperwork and leave at 7.30 pm.

Summertime is here!

2007-03-26T05:20:00.000-07:00

8.30 Now that the clocks have gone forward the plane times have changed so I am getting an earlier flight that arrives in Brussels at 1.00 pm, at least in theory. Actually it departs about an hour late, so most of the extra time is spent at Heathrow.

14.00 Arrive in the office. Straight to work on checking voting lists for our ECON votes tomorrow. We have damages actions, on which I have taken over the lead for the Group and my innovation report. Additionally I have to do my presentation on the proposed statistical board.

16.30 Meeting with specialist press from eFinancial News and Money Marketing.

17.30 Back to the paperwork, then leave to go to the flat at about 8.00pm. I note that the Place de Luxembourg is thronging with everywhere outside the bars full. Interesting how it suddenly looks like summer just because the clocks have changed and everyone is out socialising.

26th – 29th March 2007. Mini plenary week

2007-03-26T05:19:00.000-07:00

Close votes on roaming

2007-03-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

8.30 get my Eurostar ticket. Suddenly little Easter Eggs are appearing everywhere including at the ticket desk. I nobly resist.

9.00 Arrive in office and review emails and start to collect thoughts on payments. Then I get an SOS to go and vote on the Internal Market committee which is voting today on roaming. Get there for 10.00 and we take the best part of an hour to finish the votes. Many are won by ‘our side’ 22 to 21 including the final vote, so just as well I got there otherwise nothing would have been passed!

11.00 I have a meeting with the Commission on the statistics supervisory board. I am not convinced of the need! When they go we have the German Presidency on the phone wanting to come and see me on the same subject, but I have a lunch to go to so decline.

12.15 Lunch to discuss upcoming IP issues.

14.30 Back in the office and we have the final texts coming through for out meeting at 16.00. Read these then head off for the Council offices.

16.00 Trilogue meeting. More big guns there from the Presidency (the ambassador) and Commission. It all goes according to known positions with the Parliament trying to squeeze some concessions but beyond some extra clarity I do not think there will be a great deal. That suits me and the UK.

18.00 leave for Eurostar.

Kashmir and ECON

2007-03-21T05:12:00.000-07:00

8.45 Arrive in office and collect copy of modified voting list on Kashmir for the foreign affairs committee and go to the committee for 9.00.. I am able to substitute for an absent Group member and vote. In the end I think the outcome is acceptable but Saj and Liz less satisfied. I feel that we were the only ones who voted on every amendment on the basis of what it said rather than superimposing a party political allegiance. If the Tories and Labour had done what we did then there would have been an even better result. They would not support out amendments at all. However, we had fortunately worked a lot of them in to the compromises. It took an hour to complete the votes.

10.30 On way back to the office bump in to Carol and Sally Padget from Prudential, we return to the office to discuss the briefing note for the lunch in May on Solvency ll.

11.00 Into the ECON committee for votes. We take an hour, mostly on roaming which all goes our way and my amendments passed. We also vote PPP but we are able to do that en bloc with one vote, so I get a clap. We discuss my innovation opinion immediately after votes and I then have a discussion on compromise wording with the socialist shadow rapporteur.

13.00 Back to the office. Email exchanges and internal discussions take up time until 16.00 when we have a meeting of rapporteurs about the outcome of the Ambassador’s meeting on payments. The others still complain about the 12 months for credit and want it lowered to 3 months. I take the opposite view and say if that is lowered I would want a reduction in capital as a balancing measure. Anyway, reduction in capital will be asked for I am sure at the trilogue tomorrow.

17.00 Back to the office to discover that the draft for the oral question on levies does not seem to be going according to my liking. I dispatch emails, suggestions and my original. We have until next Tuesday to get this agreed. Leave at 8.30 pm.

JURI and ECON questions

2007-03-20T04:54:00.000-07:00

8.30 Carol and I spend an hour finishing the amendments and submitting them, along with the usual emails.

9.30 Go to the Equitable Life Committee. We discuss the first draft of the report which is not yet public.

10.30 Into JURI for an exchange of views with Charlie McCreevy. I have three questions. One on shareholder voting rights and what he understands by proportionality. His reply indicated he is not fixed on one share one vote as some say. The second question is on Insurance guarantees and I seem to get a "not much doing yet" response. In my third question I say there has been an article in European Voice that the patent strategy communication has been delayed because of the French Presidential elections and we have also previously been similarly told that the copyright levies communication has been delayed due to a request to Barroso from the French, so is there anything else in his remit that is being delayed for the French election that we have not yet heard about.

Everyone laughs and Charlie quips that he is thinking of a full harmonisation directive for election times. He says he was told that the levies matter was politically sensitive. Anyway, we will hopefully be revisiting that with an oral question. We do not get to discuss the legal services opinion on the European Patent Litigation Agreement, and there is a debate about whether it is confidential. Then we have a closed session that discusses whether or not to lift immunity from prosecution from a fellow MEP. There seem to be these quite often and they can arise from allegations of libel or other damage and there may be Parliamentary privilege or the equivalent.

13.30 Meeting with other Group members about amendments to the football report. All my amendments are agreed and I am able to tweak those of Toine and Ignasi so we all more or less reach agreement.

14.30 Back to the office and collect papers for ECON. We have Neelie Kroes coming and I also have to lead the discussion on the amendments of my Innovation opinion.

15.00 Into ECON. I have two questions for Neelie, but she gives such long answers to others and I am in the last round so I only ask one about whether government bonds can continue to be traded in the same way as now given the restriction to one platform (which could be a competition issue) and the interest of Citadel in trading them. She says she will send a written reply. We then go on in committee to discuss roaming and other things and I am left with 3 minutes for my opinion so we defer it until tomorrow.

19.00 A briefing dinner with BT about spectrum and communication issues.

Travelling to Brussels

2007-03-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

10.00 Depart for airport. Everything runs very smoothly and I get to the Parliament by 2.45. There is a deadline tomorrow for two sets of amendments, so I work on those then go to Juri where there is meant to be an exchange of views on the financial services white paper, for which I have just been drafting amendments. However, everything gets delayed and it gets postponed until tomorrow.

18.00 Reception at AmCham for the new Director Internal Market.

Kashmir and trilogue

2007-03-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

9.00 Our Lib Dem meeting on Kashmir. Emma presents the compromise amendments. A lot of these we are happy with. I say that I would like the first half of my amendment 15 added to the front on compromise 10. I hand out a proposal that I have prepared with Rachel (Saj’s assistant). This acknowledges the right of self determination. The rest of that compromise then lays out why at the present time it is not possible. Emma seems reluctant but Elspeth agrees with me, then also Chris says having such a reference is his bottom line too. Graham says that there is a majority in committee without my amendment. Fiona then weighs in and says we do need a reference all the more so when so much of the report says why it is not possible now. We move on and come to the same point in compromise 12. Andrew thinks the reference to self determination fits better there. We seem to get agreement from Emma.

10.15 Back in the office. Start to read the latest papers on payments ready for the trilogue this afternoon. Andrew pops in to say he thinks we may have got a result with the Kashmir discussion this morning. He agrees that it was a good thing I had produced something in writing.

11.00 Telephone call with a journalist doing a piece for a Hampshire magazine. She had written to me as an individual and was pleased with my reply and so is writing an article about the best way to contact MPs and MEPs.

11.30 A former Irish MEP pops in. He is now working for some hedge fund organisation and has been referred to me. He wants me to co sponsor a discussion dinner. That is fine, We then discuss Irish politics. He used to be leader of our Northern Ireland sister party, the Alliance, before John Alderdice. Then he moved to the Republic and became an MEP. So I ask him all the questions I never dared to ask about the Irish political parties. Carol listens in. Not sure if she is interested or wondering why I never knew all that.

12.00 Votes. My fix on Euro-Med free trade is moved and accepted.

14.30 We have a ‘trilogue’ meeting with Commission and Council on payments. Really more of an update. The translators not there so we work in a French/English hybrid.

17.00 I go to vote on the human rights resolutions then continue with phone callms and paperwork until about 8.00pm. I am on the early flight back tomorrow morning as I did not know how long the trilogue would be. On Saturday I go to Bexhill and Battle for their annual lunch.

Roaming, Football and my 10,000th vote!

2007-03-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

9.00 A later start today. Again no controversy on votes. I draft a note for circulation to the shadow rapporteurs on the amendments to the Innovation report. This is not technically necessary but it may speed up organising some compromises and make the exchange of views next week more fruitful.

11.00 Meet with Reed Elsevier on scientific publishing. There is a report on creation of an EU digital repository. The idea is that scientific papers should be made available to it freely. This is a noble principle but there seem to be problems in how publishers recoup the cost of organising peer review. This is something I do need to investigate further.

11.45 Have meeting with Olle Schmidt who has asked to be updated on the current situation on payments.

12.30 Votes. A photographer comes to take pictures of me in plenary holding a sign saying 10,000 votes. This is while we are voting. All my colleagues want to know what it is about and I am nervous they will draw too much attention to it and the President might notice. I am not sure that holding up notices in plenary is allowed! The votes seem to go so fast that she has difficulty in catching us with our hands up so it all takes much longer that expected, but in the end job safely done.

13.30 Have lunch with Ansgar Tietmeyer from Deutsche Bank. Predictably, the subject of conversation in payments. Everyone is getting worried that we are not getting closer to a solution. He also draws my attention to some points for which I had fought that have now gone from the Presidency text. This is useful but I fear it is yet another example of how detail gets squashed out in the inter-institutional stage.

15.00 I eventually find the room where the Group foreign affairs team are meeting on Kashmir. It is a small room and already there are too many Lib Dems there, so I leave it to Saj and Liz. They will not be at the meerting tomorrow so I will take over then.

15.15 Back to office work then French lesson at 17.00. We play a tape of Chirac’s speech when he announces he is not running for President again. This is good listening practice. We then talk about some of the points and I have to explain that the French definition of Liberal in the political sense is not the same as in the UK.

18.30 Back to the office to assemble papers on football and roaming.

19.00 Down to Group. We complete the roaming discussion. Diana who has listened as a ‘neutral’ says she agrees with me that the consumer cap regulation on retail is needed. The shadow on football agrees with my amendments but we start to run out of time again and so we agree to delegate the submission of amendments on football to those who have worked on it. We have a private discussion and agree to meet to finalise next week.
Leave at 9.00pm

Euro-Med Free Trade

2007-03-13T07:49:00.000-07:00

8.00 The UK Lb Dem breakfast meeting. We update among ourselves on various issues including the latest on the Kashmir compromises, although we have a special meeting on that on Thursday morning. The rest of the time is taken up with discussing a new staff appointment.

9.00 Back to the office to continue work on Audio Visual Media and football. There do not seem to be many problems with votes today. We send the football amendments off to the Group.

11.30 Interview with three counties radio on the new EU network combating scams. This was as a result of a press release last week. Did two interviews on this, one last week as well.

12.00 Votes.

13.00 Back to the office and amendments.

15.00 Meeting with Lloyds on Solvency ll. They were also at the hearing last week so we discuss the possible different approaches of regulators. I wonder whether capital retention within member states has anything to do with it.

16.00 Meeting with Bertelsmann AG on the Zingoretti report.

17.00 Meeting with other rapporteurs/shadows and Commissioner Reding on the state of play. I bring up advertising time and short news issues. The advertising issue we will have to fight out but the point I make on short news look to be understood.

18:30 Back to the office and grab papers ready for the Group meeting Saj’s assistant alerts me to a problem with amendments on the Euro-Med free trade area paper. This is all to do with if services are opened up, should the EU be more generous and allow some asymmetry. I look at it and it seems possible to get the best of both worlds by splitting the EPP amendment in question and then changing one word in the residual part of the paragraph so that options for opening the EU market asymmetrically will be looked at. Saj's assistant goes off to let our shadow rapporteur know.

19.00 Group meeting. We deal among other things with the Euro-Med free trade. My amendment proposal is agreed. We then move on to a discussion of the mobile phone roaming regulation. We are all in agreement that a market has not been established and so there needs to be wholesale regulation but we are divided on whether retail regulation is necessary. Those who have worked on the dossier agree some king of retail cap price is needed and those who have not specialised in it and are following liberal instinct do not want it. This is quite useful for making us justify our case. We run out of time so the discussi

Strasbourg begins

2007-03-12T07:47:00.001-07:00

5.30 In the taxi and off to Luton. Routine trip and I get to the Parliament at 12.15. Investigate email and other ongoing matters. There are some issues with a report on Corporate Social Responsibility, so I check through those and other information that Carol dug out on Friday. Carol arrives at about 2.00 pm. We continue to sort through the issues that are coming up in Group and check through the written declarations that I am thinking of signing.

16.00 Downstairs to the Group meeting. We discuss the annual policy statement. We then get on to the report on collection societies and copyright. Ignasi says that we have not approved all the amendments we tabled, we just agreed to table them. I was not present at the relevant meeting, but I agree with Toine’s amendments.

17.30 The Lib Dem European Parliamentary Party meeting. I am in the chair. Nothing very new or controversial. There is a new staff appointment to discuss but we will do that at our breakfast in the morning when we do not have assistants present.

18.30 All kinds of bits and pieces that need attention seem to have arisen. There is a meeting tomorrow on Audiovisual Media Services which is back from Council, and there are some problems with the latest proposals. The report on football is also to be discussed and I am putting amendments in on that. Leave at 8.00pm

Strasbourg Plenary. 12 – 16 March

2007-03-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

Back to Britain

2007-03-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

8.00 Arrive in office and pack letters into my suitcase. I am speaking in Godalming College this afternoon and in London this evening, so transport works out more sensible connecting to Surrey by train at Waterloo. I get the 9.56 Eurostar and work on my speech on slavery and child soldiers for the evening. College visit is good with interesting questions from the students. The evening is to celebrate 200 years since the abolition of slavery and to point out that there are still challenges to face of modern day slavery and human trafficking. I am the first speaker as I am a member of all the organisations involved: the British Group of Liberal International, the National Liberal Club and Anti-Slavery International. Sue Darling of Anti-Slavery follows, than Liz Lynne. It all fits together quite well.

2007-03-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

9.00 We have a meeting with the German Presidency and the Commission on Purchasing Price Parities to iron out the issue of who should pay for the collection of data. In the end it seems funding has already been happening, rather than it being needed for start up, so maintaining the status quo is reasonable. It has taken a long time to get the answer to this question which I posed at the first discussion in committee. We also take the opportunity to have a preliminary discussion on the set up of the statistics advisory board, which provides me with useful background information as to where the sensitivities lie.

11.00 We finalise letters about the campaign to save international train services at Ashford, then having a gap at last I take the opportunity to collect my curtains which I ordered weeks ago.

13.30 Back to the office and a long haul of signing the Ashford letters all afternoon. Carol and Dot get the first batch stuffed and ready to load into my case tomorrow morning. Dot has been collating information on Child Soldiers which I want to speak about tomorrow evening so we review that. Leave at 8.00pm

Payments, and a meeting with Will Hutton

2007-03-07T07:33:00.000-08:00

8.30 Arrive in office. This morning I am speaking at a seminar organised by Graham Bishop. We have booked the room for him, but they gave us the room that is used as overflow for the Group Room as the Group was expected to be away this week. So now we have a crisis as a different room has to be found.

10.00 With about 2 minutes to spare a new room is found so the seminar starts. I update as far as possible on the payments Directive, which is not really much as no agreement on capital has been reached. We do some exploring of who wants what and what if it all goes to a second reading, but it is really a waiting game now. We then move on to a discussion about the ECB and the proposed Target 2 clearing system.

13.30 Lunch with Hugh Saville from the Association of British Insurers. We discuss some possible ways of presenting a check list of improvements that have been/need to be put in place since the time of the Equitable Life problems and how they also key in to Solvency ll. We also discuss a possible fringe meeting for our Party Conference in September on planning and insurance.

15.30 Meeting with American Express about details of the latest payments proposals. Their points are valid but we have much bigger issues to resolve first.

20.00 Dinner with Will Hutton and other MEPs organised by the Centre. He was in Brux for the launch of his new book on China. The discussions on China continue through dinner. His basic premise is that China is not as strong as is made out, indeed it is really rather weak, so we should not be frightened to be open. I point out that we should be open and up for competition irrespective of whether they are weak or strong. Some Danish support for my view: easy to spot the liberals. Will admits he did not quite get the last 100 pages of the book right, so if I ever get the time to read it I can skip those!

IP and Women in Science

2007-03-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

8.00 Arrive in the office and assemble my amendments on the innovation report ready to discuss them with Toine Manders at 9.00. He agrees to cosign all mine and we add in another that he suggests.

10.00 Gary and Mark arrive to inform me on the latest developments in Council on the Payments directive. Rest of the morning spent looking at the latest Presidency documents. It still all looks very stuck to me.

12.30 Lunch debate on Women and Science. Quite interesting. One of the sponsors, L’Oreal obviously do a lot of research and have a platform that is useful for engaging with girls who are not instinctively drawn to science. I agree to be involved in their program. This is all quite reminiscent of years ago when I acted as a role model for a women in science for Bedfordshire County Council and went giving talks at schools.

15.00 Trialogue on PSD. The Presidency present their latest proposals. We will probably meet again next week in Strasbourg. Pervenche Beres attends as well as the rapporteur and shadows.

17.30 Just get in to the tail end of the Group meeting.

18.30 I have a meeting with Nicola Zingaretti on his report about criminal sanctions in IP. I explain the reasoning behind my amendment which makes the criminality contingent upon aggravated circumstances such as counterfeiting, piracy, organised crime or risk to health and safety. I think this covers the main reasons such procedures are needed and cuts out the risk from the normal way in which an invalid or suspect patent, design or trade mark is usually infringed (and no action normally taken) rather than expensive revocation proceedings being launched. Anyway, he understood so at least it gives him food for thought and it does not diverge from being a blanket approach across all IP which has some advantages in terms of legal base.

19.00 Shuffle the usual paperwork and emails then return to flat at about 8.00pm.

Travelling

2007-03-05T07:27:00.001-08:00

A late start today as there had been a meeting scheduled for London, which has been cancelled, but it leaves me with a 17.45 flight from London City Airport and the happy trundle through the east London river sights on the Docklands Light Railway, which I still quite enjoy. Get to the Parliament at 8.30 pm.

5th – 8th March 2007 Group Week

2007-03-05T07:27:00.000-08:00

Cluster Bomb Protest and FSA

2007-03-01T07:25:00.000-08:00

9.15 The luxury of a late start! More email exchanges then at 10.15 I speak to a group of postgraduates from Reading University.

11.30 I join Liz Lynne outside the Parliament for photos about banning cluster bombs. It is running late so I go to get my Eurostar tickets and that takes ages, but it is still running late by the time I get back.

12.15 Back to the office for a discussion with Andrew Duff about Kashmir and what I will say in response to questions in my Whip’s report to Party Conference.

12.45 Start the process of getting away as I have to leave at 14.00 for an appointment in London. The chap who organises FSA visits pops in and we discuss the usefulness of FSA secondment to the Parliament. I say it is very useful and also explain how the FSA presentations are really good but sometimes they fall down on questions by being too ‘correct’ and unwilling to hazard personal thoughts. I say I think it would be useful for the FSA to explain some of the teething troubles that can arise in having to change mentality from ‘tick box’ supervision to the more hands on dynamic variety the FSA now uses. We are asking other supervisors and countries to move in that direction and this is a much more accessible way to explain it, or at least I think so.

14.00 Off to Eurostar.

Impressive performance by rapporteur

2007-02-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

8.30 The later start enables me to find the concierge and give her a spare key for the new lock to my flat. I then arrive at the office do the emails and go to Committee. I feel tired as the Industry innovation report inaccuracies have been buzzing in my head and I send out a few emails on the subject.

9.30. In Committee. We get to votes at 10, and it is just a single vote as all the 117 amendments can be taken en blok as we are in agreement. Must be a record. We all applaud the rapporteur for getting to grips with the problems and making it so simple for us. I do my two presentations and we also discuss the Russia report to which I have submitted an amendment. The PSE shadow rapporteur has decided he does not agree with me on one of my amendments on the PPP report, but the EPP shadow does. I will be seeing the Commission and Council on the same point next week, so I can wait to see what they say. At the moment I still prefer my line and obviously could get it through committee with EPP support.

12.45 The EPFSF (European Parliament Financial Services Forum) lunch. This is usually interesting and the topic today is competition sectoral enquiries into banking services.

14.15 I have a meeting with Gauzes, the EPP rapporteur on payments. This is really just to check out that he has no surprises up his sleeve for next week’s trilogue with the commission and council. He has been having a bit of a hard time since the last one and though I do not agree with everything he does he is trying very hard to be fair and responsible. We both agree that we have switched from being optimistic about reaching agreement with council to being pessimistic. Anyway, this will help keep the Parliament side together as much as possible.

14.30 This afternoon and evening, and indeed tomorrow morning, there are ECON interparliamentary debates with national parliament members. However as I have to meet an amendment deadline on the innovation strategy reports for both ECON and Industry of next Tuesday and we have a Party Conference this weekend and a trilogue next Tuesday I decide I have to get everything organised today. So spend the rest of the day on amendments and circulating them to other MEPs who may want to be alerted. Leave at 20.30.

Solvency II

2007-02-27T07:20:00.000-08:00

8.00 I go to the Parliament to swot up on the Solvency ll people I have to introduce in the Hearing later this morning and generally do a bit of preparation for that.

9.15 The Hearing on Solvency ll starts. This is in the round room with the interesting perspective views again, but as I am in the chair for one of the sessions I sit with the other chairs with my back to the window. The first two sessions are on industry and reinsurance. I find the presentation by Swiss Re on reinsurance particularly helpful. My session is on supervision and audit. I have as speakers Paul Sharma from the FSA who chairs the CEIOPS life and non-life issues, Jaroslaw Boguszynski a Director from the Polish Supervisory Commission and Philippe Foulquier from the EDHEC Institute. Sharma is fine, I have a good stab at the Polish name but he says ‘yes it is difficult to pronounce’ so obviously it was not quite good enough, and although the French pronunciation of Foulquier is ok he then proceeds so fast in French that I have to interrupt on behalf of the translators who just can not keep up. I am amazed how some people can get words out so quickly. The discussion gets lively, I take the third presentation as a question back to Sharma, then kick in a question myself about ‘on call’ capital. There is a big difference between the supervisors in how they see things and the panellists from the previous sessions also join in so I am able to keep bringing different people in and it all flows very well. We could have kept going for a lot longer I think if time had permitted. Others enjoyed it too and told me so afterwards, thanking me, but really it was just the way it fell rather than my skill.

13.00 Back to the office and emails about the proposed oral question on levies and completing the voting list for damages actions for ECON votes tomorrow.

15.00 Claire Bury, deputy head of cabinet for McCreevy comes to see me. We discuss the patent situation generally and exchange views on what we are picking up. She leaves at 16.00 and Thaddeus Burns arrives with Todd Dickinson (GE). Todd is their main patent counsel and used to be in charge of the US Patent Office, so is always interesting concerning what is happening in the US.

17.00 The Prep meeting of ALDE before tomorrow’s ECON votes. Most of the time is taken up by me explaining to Wolf how I have negotiated the compromises in the damages actions report and how I think what I have done should satisfy the spread of views within the Group. Karen who is actually our shadow is not there.

18.00 Back to the office and I work until 19.30 on various papers and preparing my presentation for tomorrow. I have both innovation strategy and Purchasing Price Parities to do. It also becomes apparent that it is proving to be as difficult as expected for the JURI votes on damages to be blended in to our voting schedule (we are the lead committee, but we have to vote on things from them that fall more in their competence). However the final voting list has still not turned up when I need to leave to get to the supermarket. On the way out I see Pervenche Beres, our ECON chair and she tells me that the vote is to be postponed, so the meeting will not start until 9.30 instead of 9.00. Back at the flat I read through the Industry Committee draft Report on innovation and find several really bad bits about patents and open standards. The draughtsman is asking for things that would be completely contrary to TRIPS . I will have to put amendments in to that committee as well as my ECON opinion.

Committee Week Begins

2007-02-26T07:18:00.000-08:00

Leave home for Heathrow at 10.00. Flight is a little delayed so I do not get to Brussels with any time to spare before committees start at 3.00

3.15 Rush straight into the Legal Affairs Committee in time for the discussion on designs. It is packed out again, and as far as I can tell very little progress has been made in trying to get the French and German car industry to accept that they should not monopolise the spare parts markets. I talk to Piia-Noora Kauppi about the proposed Oral Question on copyright levies. As I am to represent the Group at the coordinators meeting because Diana Wallis who is the coordinator can not be there, I agree with the EPP coordinator that we will raise it and we get agreement in principle to proceed, ideally also with the Internal Market Committee . I will now circulate a draft before the next coordinators meeting and we should get it on to the plenary for April.

17.30 I return to the office and send out emails about the coordinators agreement, and go through the JURI voting list for tomorrow on damages actions. We have a few differences from the proposals from the Wallis Office and Carol goes to explain our reasoning. I find the JURI report very difficult to make compatible with what we have managed to agree in ECON, they are much more focussed on consumer protection and the outcome of ECJ decisions than with tackling the discovery of more abuses.

18.45 Proceed to the ‘cocktails’ with the insurance industry people here for tomorrow’s Hearing on solvency 2. The expression ‘cocktails’ seems to mean a glass of wine, champagne or orange at the cocktail hour. Only crisps and nuts and I suddenly realise the usual Monday problem of there having been no food all day. Useful conversations held and it gets to around 9.00 before I leave to go to the flat.

A frustrating journey to Strasbourg

2007-02-12T23:30:00.000-08:00

5.30 Taxi arrives to go to Luton airport. Easyjet have sent out an email saying allow an extra 45 minutes on your journey because of road works – a bit much really when the journey should take us less than 30 minutes. I allow an extra half hour. I bet all this does is cause everyone to be extra early so that we get queues for security again. This turns out to be the case.

We land on time 10.05 (9.05 UK time) and there is no car in sight. Eventually a driver turns up who is also collecting for the next flight in. I decide I want to know in advance if that is the case. I will have a word with the Strasbourg desk. The next flight in from City airport is late.

A wet and rainy journey to the Parliament follows, which gets in after 12.00 so no chance of putting amendments in on the Lisbon paper. Annoying.

12 -15 February Plenary week

2007-02-12T07:55:00.000-08:00

2007-02-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

9.00 Get to office and have meeting with Jorgo Chatzimarkakis and BASF about a dinner they are planning for 12 June.

11.00 Meeting with people from the International Federation of the Recording Industry about the Zingaretti Report on Criminal Sanctions for IP. They reckon nothing much is gained by it at the cost of a lot of problems – I agree but the signal of dumping it would also be wrong.

11.45 Go to the Stanhope for lunch with Thaddeus and Francisco. We discuss Russia, a bit on copyright levies and the EPLA situation. I detect a cooling off on EPLA from industry, which has also come to me from other quarters. Not surprising I suppose because when it looked like a relatively quick option it was attractive, but the price of ‘Communitising’ it looks like a lot of delay, complexity and I do not know how the ECJ would fit in well without specialist judges. Anyway, I do not see a quick fix any more. Pity because it would have been good to get a proper feedback loop from the courts to the European Patent Office functioning.

14.00 Back to my office for a French lesson. I learn all the vocabulary for changing locks that I did not have earlier this week.

16.30 Get back to the flat with yet another cushion cover as a sample to see whether it matches; think I may have got it right this time.

18.00 Meet David Griffiths for dinner at the Rennaissance. He is over for a meeting tomorrow of the ELDR steering Committee to discuss budgets. I am also on the Committee, but the way the discussions on payments seem to be going I doubt whether I will get there, so David will have to cope alone. Go back to flat at 8pm and pack.

2007-02-07T23:30:00.000-08:00

9.00 I wait for the locksmith to come to my flat so that the lock can be checked and in due course changed. He does not arrive by 9.30 so I lock up to go. I meet the concierge and collect new keys for the building and explain to her, rather badly, that the locksmith is coming to my flat and she thinks I intend to change the complete door. Anyway, all is saved when the chap turns up, so all is well.

10.00 Arrive in Parliament. My lunch with Thaddeus Burns and Francisco Mingorance has been put off, so we rearrange for tomorrow, I then go down to Group where we discuss the European Parliament work program and the work on the Lisbon strategy report for the Spring Council. I would like to put in some amendments to the competitiveness section, but I would have to draft it by Monday noon. Some of the IRC people are in the room as guests, hope they noted the short timescale we have to operate to. We also discuss the SWIFT data issue. How many banks are there handing over info to the US that we have not found out about?

12.30 Back to the office. I draft my report on innovation. We are only allowed 1500 characters so it has to be very compact. It can be fleshed out by amendment. I manage to squeeze in all the key points we wanted to flag, but I am sure the compactness of my drafting will give the translators something to think about.

15.30 Go down to talk to the IRC people. They are running about 30 mins late, so Fiona does not finish her session with them until 4pm and I only just get started when Graham arrives. So after a few minutes I let him on because he will have to go by 4.30. I then sweep up at the end but I think they are all a bit on overload by then..

17.00 Continue with emails and finalising report. Go back to the flat at 8pm.

Feet first

2007-02-06T23:30:00.000-08:00

9.00 The legal opinion from the Parliament’s services on EPLA has arrived. It seems a bit over the top and with inaccuracies, over emphasising where there is overlap with EU legislation, but that is what I would expect from institutions. Following last night’s meeting a letter to the Times on Eurostar has been drafted by the Ashworth office, so we slightly amend and agree. This will go from the 4 MEPs. We send off first drafts of our business letter for consideration.

11.30 Go to working group C. We discuss child soldiers. I intervene on some amendments on trade relations with Mediterranean countries (non EU) that Saj Karim has put in, backing up his arguments. We have a bit of a battle of free traders (me) versus Southern European colleagues being protective of their fruit markets. So the matter is deferred to full Group with the expectation that some compromise text can be worked out.

12.45 I go to the Rennaissance Hotel for a meeting of the European Enterprise Institute at which the Nobel Prize winner for Economics Prof. Edmund Phelps is speaking on the spirit of entrepreneurship. In theory EEI is a cross party organisation but as far as the platform is concerned they are all from the EPP. There are a few useful references made, but not surprisingly he seems to speak the lingo of an economist rather than of an innovator/entrepreneur. So no help for my report on innovation.

15.30 Back to the Parliament for working Groups A and B. The oil prices report and my single amendment is up for presentation. I explain how all my amendments are already in the report and the only amendment I now wish to make is to delete a phrase on hedge funds that is in the wrong place, and so unbalances the report. The only reason it is there is because it got inserted as part of a compromise, which it was not, and the EPP got their voting wrong when I asked for a separate vote. We actually smell a bit of a rat in how it was sneaked in (we suspect the PSE chair of the committee exerting undue influence). The EPP have asked me to put in my amendment to delete again – presumably it is a bit embarrassing for them to go to their Group and admit they got confused! Anyway, no problems, I get the agreement.

We then have a discussion on incinerator efficiency. None of the UK’s incinerators would pass the new proposals for 70% efficiency. In France only 8 would pass. Germany and the Scandinavian countries do better. Hot countries that do not need to produce heat will have a different formula. We then discuss definitions of waste for the waste directive. It seems that products, or rather by products, that have an economic value should not be classed as waste, e.g tallow. Also animal carcasses not meant to be covered. Then we have a brief discussion about European Coastguards. Good idea, but there may be subsidiarity problems in such a proposal.

16.30 Back to the office. More work on roaming amendments, emails on EPLA.

17.30 I get down to Group in time for discussion on CIA flights. Sometimes we are very frustrated at not getting information, and that will surely change now the US Congress is looking at the issue. However there are legal actions pending in Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal as well as the US Congress inquiry, largely due to the European Parliament work on special rendition.

18.30 Go to the launch of the Women Inventors and Innovators network, of which I have agreed to be a patron.

19.15 Go to the ELDR offices for Lex’s leaving party.

20.00 Go to dinner with members of our UK Lib Dem International Relations Committee, of which I used to be co-chair. I have a session to talk with them tomorrow. Andrew Duff says he has never known anyone find their feet in the Parliament as quickly as me (thank you Andrew) then says he thinks I came in feet first – I think he meant it in a favourable way…..

Save Ashford International

2007-02-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

10.00 leave for Heathrow. I am on BMI today and the plane arrives ahead of schedule and as it is a tad earlier than the BA departure I get to the Parliament by 2.45, which would be in time for a 3.00 committee meeting in other weeks. Now that they also do online check in and they go from terminal 1 which is nearer and cheaper taxi ride, the balance of convenience swings to them again, bad luck BA.

15.00 Check through amendments on roaming and the latest timetable proposals for the Payments Services Directive. Compose letter to businesses concerning the proposed stopping of Eurostar services to Brussels from Ashford. Check though emails and various other upcoming amendments.

18.00 Leave Parliament and go to a meeting about Eurostar via my flat to drop off suitcase. The meeting is at the new offices of Kent County Council, not far from the old ones. They are obviously one of the first in to the building and the refurbishment is not complete. The lift still has cardboard all over the inside with hole poked through to get at the controls. We have a cross party meeting on the save Ashford International campaign with a local campaigner Edith Robson. Assistants are there for Peter Skinner, Caroline Lucas and Richard Ashworth, but I am the only MEP that turns up. I tell them we have drafted a letter. We finish at about 8pm which makes it too late for me to get to the European Cruise reception.

5th to 9th February 2007 Group Week

2007-02-05T04:10:00.000-08:00

Speech and Votes

2007-02-01T23:30:00.000-08:00

8.00 Arrive in office and start to organise papers to take back to the UK.

8.45 The constituent meeting of ECON. As for JURI yesterday it is in the room opposite the hemicycle, which is quite sensible as it means it is close for those who are engaged in debates. This enables me to be present and then get to the chamber in time for the start of the debate at 9.00 because I am due on at 9.08. Astrid Lulling is in the Chair as the oldest Member, and I now realise is it obviously the form to make jokes about tying to occupy that place for as long as possible. Anyway she does her amusing bits. Events are a bit more formal with the nominations for positions including a plug for the worthiness of the individuals. We re-elect, by acclamation, Pervenche Beres as Chair/President. We then do the same for four vice presidents, only they are done individually then summoned up to the front, so Astrid manages to spin things out longer. But no surprises.

9.00 Into plenary. This is Diana’s first time in the chair of a session so Elspeth and Andrew have also turned up to give moral support. She speaks very clearly, as do all the Brits, which is more than can be said for some others. My speech seems to work OK, making my points without putting backs up. I congratulate Diana, as have others, apologise to the rapporteur for intervening when I had not at the committee stage and make my point. I use about three and a half minutes.

10.00 Back to my office and UKRep comes to update me on the latest on payments. There is still no real progress at Council level on the capital requirements. Carol is having another meeting with the Rapporteur’s assistant Cecile this afternoon. I do a telephone radio interview, continue sorting papers then Liz raises a query on one environment committee vote, which I settle with Chris Davies.

11.30 Votes. Poettering is in the chair again, but he establishes a rhythm and it is much better than his first go at Strasbourg. I lose concentration at one point where some votes fall and we have to skip to the next page and manage to vote the wrong way on the recorded vote discussed with Liz! It does not make any difference to the end result, indeed it is one of those things where one agrees with what is said, but it is not within the EU’s remit and in factual terms is a little inaccurate, so a vote in any direction is possible. I usually abstain on such occasions so I will have to amend the record to that. (MEPs can inform of mistaken votes and have that shown on the record so their actual intentions are known, but it can not change the result of the vote that was taken).

12.30 Back to the office. I send an email to the Lib Dem MEPs about the vote mix up in case anyone else was caught on the hop, sign the amendments we are submitting on PPP; Russia we have already done. Head for Eurostar at 2.00. I have the same driver as last week, but no accidents this time. Get home a bit before 6pm. Tomorrow I am having discussions about VAT, Tax and fiscal fraud with PriceWarterhouseCooper.

Committee Places Decided

2007-01-31T23:30:00.000-08:00

8.30 Our Lib Dem European Parliamentary Party meeting. Sarah is to get the human rights position and a place on the US delegation so she is happy. Under any other business we discuss the NHS computer. Several of us are worried that it is an infringement of data protection that police and others will have access. It seems the Government get around this by saying the data is not owned by individuals but by the NHS! Of course when it comes to other data they argue the other way round: eg not giving tax info to other countries to help track fraud. We would like to challenge them on the NHS.

9.00 Nothing of mine in the working groups so I continue with work on amendments on Russia and putting a note together on trademarks and the Russian Civil Code for Commissioner Mandelson.

10.00 ALDE Group meeting. We hear the final package of committee places. We seem to have traded one of our JURI places for something else and behind the scenes several of us are unhappy at that. In the Committees later today and tomorrow we will vote for chairs and vice chairs. Normally one follows the agreed (or is that ‘greed’!) package but there are some that do not want to do that for the far right wing group. It is argued than for some committees that are technical it would not matter but on committees like culture which is about ‘values’ they are a bigger problem. We agree that we will not propose candidates against them. Individuals will have to vote as they see fit. I am uncomfortable at a discriminatory approach.

14.00 Another ECON prep meeting to elect our co-ordinator. Wolf tried to do this yesterday but had to be reminded it could not be done until committee places allocated. Technically I still think it is too early as we do not vote the places until 5.30 in plenary. I am late again because just as I set off Diana comes to say that tomorrow when she is in the chair in Plenary for the first time there is a debate on a European Private Company Statute which she shadowed. We have no speaker from ALDE and 8 minutes speaking time, so do I want to say something? I say ok, but not 8 minutes as that would be disproportionately long, longer than the Rapporteur. So I say I will do 4 minutes.

When I arrive at ECON prep Margarita has already started to complain that Wolf is not giving a fair share out of work and is keeping too much to himself, especially the best things. This is true. Anyway we let him continue with the job. I will be far to busy with JURI stuff as well to want the coordinator job, indeed I suspect I will have to help Diana out on JURI when she is doing Parliament Bureau stuff.

16.30 Having filled in time with press releases more work on Russia and looking out documents on the Company Statutes I see Mikael Down from UKRep on fiscal fraud. The UK just wants freedom to reverse charge selectively and on other frauds to get better information.

17.30 Into Plenary to vote for the committee places. There are no allowed amendments, so there ends up being no votes.

18.00 We have the ‘constituent meeting’ of JURI. As the oldest member Marco Pannella is in the Chair. Rather like with the Group when he did the same function he likes his moment in the chair and, quite amusingly, manages to draw things out longer than necessary. Anyway, no surprises here and we re-elect Gargarni as Chair then the four vice presidents agreed in the ‘package’ en bloc by acclamation (clapping).

18.20 Back in my office to work out what I am saying tomorrow in the debate on Private Company Statute. It seems that the JURI committee voted for the report unanimously, but I do not agree. I think it would only work for medium sized companies because of the capital provisions. That would not matter as long as it does not introduce an element of discrimination. Anyway, that is what I intend to say.

19.30 Leaving party for Desiree, Graham’s assistant who is going to work for Commissioner Kallas. Some useful networking with Italian, Hungarian and German colleagues.

Russia and Roaming

2007-01-30T23:30:00.000-08:00

8.00 Kangaroo Group Breakfast Debate with the German Finance Minister. He makes it quite clear that to tackle VAT fraud they want to agree that any Member State can switch to using the Reverse Charge mechanism for everything. He is at least candid about Germany wanting this for itself because it solves other problems that they have with VAT collection under their Federal system. I am already getting a little fed up with hearing about the German ‘constitutional position’. I ask whether their scheme would rule out abolition of cross border tax (which I think it must) and close off other options. He does not really answer. Other tax issues are discussed but most of us have to leave at 9.00 to get to Committee.

9.00 I get to ECON just after 9.00 in time to discuss mobile phone roaming charges. I say that we should have a sunrise clause for data. I think broad agreement on this is building and I ask the Commission whether it raises any problems. They say not and that there are already similar proposals coming from the Presidency. The only other significant point debated is whether the retail mark-up should be 130% or 150%. Some members fear that companies will just mark up their domestic tariffs to compensate for losing their roaming super-profit. However, that would be illegal and is probably why companies have said they will not do that. Goebbels the Rapporteur on Russia comes to discuss his report and a WTO amendment he has drafted. He will send it to me.

11.00 Charlie McCreevy comes to update us on his plans. Seems not long ago that he did this, so some is similar and some has moved on. I leave at 12.00 to go to the JURI Committee as they are meant to be discussing damages actions. In fact they are running late and it is postponed again. I do wish they would be a bit more organised, but at least I am not alone in not knowing as the Commission chap has sat there to no avail too.

12.30 ECON Prep meeting. Carol and I get waylaid so arrive a little late. We go through votes, the only real discussion is on pensions and how/whether to move funds when an employee moves firms. It seems the problem in Germany is that there are no separate pension funds, the money is used by firms and then when workers retire they pay out of ongoing revenue, just like Governments do. So if they had to pay out a pension fund share for a moving employee they would lose capital, and for that reason they try to reduce mobility!! Anyway, we thought this not very liberal so stuck with Sophie’s voting proposals that the money should move.

13.30 A ‘lunchless’ meeting with the FSA about hedge funds. The usual suspects there: Peter Skinner, me, Wolf Klinz, Margarita Starviecute, John Purvis, Ike van den Burg and Prevenche Beres. The presentation is quite interesting but the answers to questions not as informative as hoped. Anyway I suppose the conclusion is that the things that are complained about with hedge funds are activities that could happen with other funds – one should target the behaviour not the fund. To some extent that is what the FSA do by regulating fund managers. They can not get at the fund anyway as they are always offshore. It also seems they could avoid regulation by appointing more than one manager, e.g. one not in the UK so not FSA regulated, but when I asked they said this was not common – however, when LTCM had their crisis they had two mangers.

15.00 ECON and votes. I leave after votes and work on Russia and Roaming. Leave at 7pm in order to get to the supermarket.

Start of Mini-Plenary week

2007-01-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

10.00 I get a train to London as we have arranged to have an Office meeting with Miranda coming from Folkestone, Sue from Berkhamsted and Carol is over for the weekend from Brussels. We have a useful session in the National Liberal Club then I go to get a flight from City Airport.

It does not seem such a bad trek with the break for the meeting and I quite enjoy seeing the sights of East London from the Docklands Light Railway. I get to Brussels about 5pm. Carol has used Eurostar to get back and arrives at about 6pm, but as she left the NLC about half an hour after me I reckon she had the better deal in terms of comfort. There is an email from Andrew Duff saying that there is a vacant vice chair position on the human rights sub committee. We have four people on that committee. I tell him that under our agreed protocol of the long serving members who have not been VPs, it should be Sarah and he says that is what he will be aiming for.

19.00 I have a meeting with Brenard-Louis Roques from Truffle 100. He seems to want to pick my brains on the current situation with Intellectual Property.

Early finish and travel delays!!

2007-01-24T23:30:00.000-08:00

9.00 Arrive in the Parliament. I have to go back to the UK today as I have a conference to speak at tomorrow morning in London. So I have my suitcase with me, which feels very odd!

9.30 Votes in ECON. Only four of our seven there – where are they?? Seems we have clash of voting with other committees again. The Chair tries to take the votes very quickly and trips herself up. We have 9 pages of votes on broad Economic Guidelines, 6 on the EIB Annual Report and 35 pages on Prudential Assessment Acquisition. I reckon that there are up to 20 votes per page, but as some fall when compromises are passed we may only have to vote on 5 to 10 per page.

After votes we talk about Economic Relations with Russia so I bring up the TRIPS and WTO concerns, which is agreed by the Rapporteur and EPP shadow (and Olle Scmidt our shadow).

12.30 Working Lunch on the Investment Funds White Paper. I leave a little before the end at 2.00 in order to get the 3.00 Eurostar. En route to the station my driver ever so slightly nudges another car. So he has to stop and the other driver seems to insist he wants to make a claim. My driver a little concerned about what he is meant to do with me but we are right by a Metro Station so I jump out. It seems another driver would be sent to the first with crash paperwork to complete.

Anyway, I get to Gare du Midi and first of all the train is delayed, and then cancelled. Then all the Investment Fund speakers whom I ran out on earlier arrive at Gare du Midi for the next Eurostar, which is also delayed. I chat to some very nice people travelling to Ashford and tell them how we are campaigning to try and maintain the Brussels - Ashford service. On the train I write my speeches for tomorrow.

Miranda emails to say that her work is all going wrong as my weekend engagements this week and next are cancelled, so not a good day for the Bowles Office. Tomorrow is all day in London and Friday I will be able to work on the Zingaretti Report on criminal sanctions on IP and do the usual radio interviews.

Tax, Damages and my First Report

2007-01-23T23:30:00.000-08:00

8.00 Attend a Welsh Breakfast organised by the Farmer’s Union of Wales. No lava bread (seaweed) in sight but we do at least have British style sausages and bacon instead of the continental varieties which I do not like.

We talk about issues such as hormone beef still coming in from Brazil. All cattle are supposed to be ear tagged 90 days before slaughter, but it is reckoned that many are done much later and that it is simply impossible to check, after all there are 160 million cattle in Brazil. They complain that the Forces can have food imported that is banned for the rest of us and this is a risk. The last outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease was apparently traceable to a farm that took swill from an army camp that was still importing beef on the bone despite a general ban.

Also, the average age of British farmers is now 60, that is a very high average and has gone up 4 years from 56 when Tory MEP Neil Parish did his report. Then there was an interesting exchange between Labour and Tory MEPs on who to blame for the mess with milk. It seems the Tories made it half a mess and then Labour completed making it worse!!

9.00. Dump my coat in my office and go to a Workshop on Integration of EU Financial Services. It is in a room on the 5th floor where the seats are in concentric circles around a large open space – I always think it is a bit like a small ice rink and that we need a floor show. I sit opposite the window and at lazy moments contemplate the tallness of trees which reach up to the fifth floor level and the perspective that makes the occasional plane seemingly inches from their branches. Despite the distractions of the perspective I take notes on several interesting presentations.

I ask a question about the new technical platform for the Euronext Exchange and the fact that the supervisory board have suggested a US system. How does this fit with encouraging innovative European procurement and could it make platform sharing and the import of the US regulatory regime a little more likely? No admissions made. Price and quality of the platform will be the deciding factors, they say. Nevertheless there is acknowledgement that overspill of US regulation is huge, as they are thorough with strong leadership. In the EU only the UK’s FSA shows the same kind of leadership. An interesting diversion leads to the comment that Trade Secrets are a huge issue for Investment Banks.

11.30 I temporarily leave the hearing to meet the Prime Minister of the Azad Go vernment of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan. Saj Karim and I discuss the strategy on the amendments that we have filed on the Kashmir report.

12.00 Back to the Hearing

14.00 ECON committee prep meeting. We go through upcoming votes, but nothing critical.

14.30 I Meet with other Liberal MEPs in the car park under the Parliament to do a photo about car emissions. Chris Davies has a little device that produces steam to simulate an exhaust and we position it underneath Graham Watson’s car. The best photo opportunity is missed – that of a gaggle of MEPs carefully planting something under their Group Leader’s car, but I guess that is not funny in today’s terrorist concern climate.

15.00 Commissioner Kovacs is in ECON Committee, he is the Tax Commissioner. After his update I ask him about the delays in the UK on getting VAT refunds. Although this is caused by having to check that it is not part of a carousel fraud, some businesses are waiting a year for significant sums, even when they have themselves done lots of due diligence checks. Some go bust. Is this proportionate? Kovacs does not specifically say it is disproportionate but I get the feeling he thinks it is and says the Commission are aware and are keeping watch. Hopefully I have made him watch even closer.

ECON continues with discussion on the Damages actions amendments. I say the compromise amendment's basically OK but I still have some problems with the language of paragraph 5 (on mutual recognition of decisions – I think this is ok as a longer term objective but it can not be denied that there are some Member States that have not got their existing legal systems up to scratch. The Commission is threatening to suspend recognition for Romania.) Paulis of the Commission again repeats that he will proceed in little steps. We then get to PPP and I present my report and proposals. This is actually my first presentation as a legislative Rapporteur (all the rest so far have been as a shadow rapporteur, though several others are now in the pipeline). I cannot say it felt momentous, maybe because I have actually done some significant things from the shadow position.

17.00 Go back to the office and paperwork and a meeting with Vernon Everitt of the FSA to talk about consumer education. It seems money management is to become part of the school curriculum. That I do not mind, but he did mention that it would be part of maths – which I reckon is just more dumbing down of maths!!

19.00 The ECON Committee New Year Cocktail. Commissioners Kroes, McCreevy and B’s Almunia there. Charlie McCreevy comes to say hello before he leaves and I say we must have a chat. He suggests during Strasbourg week, maybe dinner or whatever fits in. Carol will fix something. Going to this means that I miss going to the Celebration of Scotland’s Beers, which I have co-sponsored as a vice chair of the Parliamentary Beer Club.

Committee Week. Late Start

2007-01-22T23:30:00.000-08:00

Monday 22 January 2007
No meetings today so I am on a midday flight again, only it gets very delayed and I do not get to the Parliament until about 4.15pm. I check the week ahead and sort papers. Leave at 6.30 and proceed to my flat with my ‘homework’.

Away Day

2007-01-18T23:30:00.000-08:00

9.00 The luxury of a late start. Spoilt a little becase the MEP sharing my car is not ready to depart on time. Get to office and finish the damages actions amendments and try to organise some meetings, then it is off to plenary votes at 12.00. This is the first voting session chaired by Poettering in his new position os President and he seems a little nervous. He does not set a good rhythm and on the electronic votes there is not enough time to check, lose concentration and you get it wrong. I hope someone tells him. The votes are nearly all second reading issues so ‘qualified majorities’ of half of the total number of MEPs (not just half of those present) are needed. It looks to me as if there are a few too many absentees, and this proves the case as quite a lot of amendments that have a majority of those present do not get passed. Voting lasts until nearly 1.30

14.00 The UK Lib Dems are staying in Strasbourg for an ‘Awayday’, which extends over dinner. It was going to include tomorrow as well but we have all found reasons to do other things! I change my flight to an early one tomorrow. It seems there are loads of cancellations because of the wind, so just as well I am not heading back today. We have fixed up to visit flood planes in Wokingham on Sunday. All fits in with insuring.

Up with the lark and new Lib Dem leader

2007-01-17T23:30:00.000-08:00

6.00 I take a taxi to the Parliament as the official cars do not start until 7.30. I go via the main entrance and as I walk through the courtyard enclosed by the ‘tower’ block it is dark and silent except for my clattering heels which is really eerie. I go up the steps by the hemicyle to a landing where I think BBC are meant to be, but spot them on a different landing which requires a different set of stairs.

We meet up, chat about what I am doing, I get fitted with mike and earpiece and we wait for the feed from the UK. I have to do this talking to the camera with the interviewer in London. While we wait I chat to the camera crew about the football report and I ask them whether they know anything about paying to be on TV in Bulgaria – they do not but (jokingly) suggest it is a good idea if the crews get the money. They assumed it meant a bribe, but I explain I think she meant it was official. Anyway, they did not know. After the interview I go to the office and Carol arrives a bit before 8.00 and says she saw it in her hotel and it was ok. I then do BBC 3 Counties radio interview over the phone.

9.00 Daniel Trinder of Goldman Sachs comes to see me about Solvency 2. He used to work at the Treasury until last year so he is useful in giving us contact names there as well. This is not prime Goldman territory, but they do have to assess (if that is the right word) insurance companies for market purposes. They reckon it will bring about cross border mergers as well, but that is not really news. He says there are also different conditions in other countries. In the UK with annual renewals it is easy to switch, but in Belgium for example 90 days notice has to be given so markets are more static. It will be interesting to see if this brings about some ‘protectionist’ resistance to Solvency 2.

9.40 Into the Plenary for Chancellor Merkel’s presentation. I slightly overrun with Daniel Trinder so I miss the first couple of minutes of her speech, which is about 40 minutes long. It is pretty good and well received. She includes a long section on tolerance. Her buzz words are Technology, Tolerance and Talent. The applause is long and warm. Barroso then makes a speech in reply followed by the usual format of speeches from each of the Group leaders. Daul and Schulz both overrun their time. Graham is again by far the best and deals with flaws in the Presidency program, says it mentions ‘social’ twice as often as ‘competitive’, liberal only once and there is not enough on civil rights. But he has a few too many quotations for my liking.

12.00 Back to the office then off to a lunch at 12.30 with CEA, European Insurers Association, about climate change. Some of the content is quite repetitive of a similar meeting I went to in 2005. They seem to be suggesting that as far as natural disasters are concerned they want the state to become the reinsurer of last resort. Spain and France have this system for floods. I ask a question about how this fits into a competitive cross border framework, as envisaged by Solvency 2. They can not answer, but Oliver from the British Insurers, who is not one of the speakers, promises to dig out an answer. I do not really see this taking off. We will see.

14.30 Back to my office for a meeting with Toine Manders on Criminal Sanctions in IP. We also have a bit of a flurry of email exchanges on how we will vote on some of the rail transport amendments. The proposed compromise amendments have come through on damages actions, so I have a look at those.

18.00 I go to the LDEPP special meeting at which we are electing a new leader for our UK MEP delegation now that Diana is a Parliament vice president. Emma is presiding as ‘chair’ of the meeting, rather drolly handing out an agenda that has adoption of agenda, matters arising, election and AOB on it when all really have to do is vote. Neil Corlett is sitting there with the ballot box as he is returning officer. I am not quite the last to vote but the others come along so I hang around for the result and we have elected Andrew Duff.

19.00 Group meeting. We had a last minute alert to get proxies for Diana as there may be an attempt to change part of her Rome 2 report that is coming up for second reading next week. This is all about how to manage cross border litigation. The last minute attempt to change Diana’s proposals is duly made, but does not gather enough support to go to a vote. We then have a long discussion about the secret regulation concerning liquids allowed to be carried on planes. Many of us are not happy with the process because the detail of what may or may not be carried is actually secret, so if an arbitrary decision is made against you there is no information available for you to check or challenge. It seems the matter was discussed, secretly, in the transport committee. Unfortunately they may not have been as awake to civil liberties matters as the civil liberties committee. It is still not clear how a change can be made.

Ignasi Guardans is incited by the matter, he regards it the kind of law that was made under Franco. Paolo Costa thinks it more a matter of how the comitology process (consulting committees) should work and it gets to a bit of a lively dispute. It seems that Ignasi has got a copy, in Spanish, of the secret document, from a journalist. Anne Jensen then says that it is of course on the website of the parliament in Denmark because it was discussed at Council so it has to be public! Bit stupid it ever being secret then. However the underlying reasoning is still secret. It seems amazing the catalogue of things that MEPs have been relieved of while travelling, from tranquillisers to pregnancy testing kits. The tranquillisers would have come in handy for Ignasi and Paolo.

Anyway, there are more things afoot too, we are going to be monitored with spy cameras that automatically check our hand gestures and chips on our boarding passes to see if we have got lost in the loos. After that we are not left with enough time to talk about football, so after a brief introduction we agree to hold that over.

Three votes and a coronation

2007-01-16T23:30:00.000-08:00

8.00 LDEPP breakfast. We talk about Kashmir, Palestine and holocaust denial. Emma says that masses of weapons are being stockpiled by Hamas and Hizbullah and she fears for a civil war.

9.00 Emails then off to plenary for 10.00 for the presidential debate and votes. Not being distracted by a seat hunt, I look at the assembling throng. This time last year I remember looking round and noting that lots of colleagues must have had skiing holidays because Robert Kilroy-Silk was not the only orange suntan, and there were also several plaster casts. This year we are all pale with fully working limbs, no doubt because there is no snow.

There are ballot boxes at intervals around the hemicycle with hussiers standing guard. The oldest member of the house is in charge of proceedings: he draws ballots for eight scrutineers of the votes and ballot papers are distributed by the hussiers. Then it is on to the speeches. Bonde says the same as last night, so I need not have gone. Monica Frassoni makes a very good speech which is not just the same as last night, so good for her. Poettering and Wurtz do the same as last night, so I decide to vote on merit. We then queue up to sign the register sheets and post our ballots. The AB box does not seem to have as long a queue as the others, so I am done by 11.10 and nip back to my office to deal with a press release on roaming and then back to the hemicycle for the results. Poettering gets 450 of the 689 valid votes cast. There are 26 blanks, Bonde gets 46, Wurtz 48 and Frassoni 145.
We stand up and applaud, then sit down. Poettering gets flowers and waves so we all stand up and applaud again, sit down, then he goes and takes his seat so we all stand up and applaud again (!!!). He tells us he will give us his presidential program tomorrow and the other Group leaders make speeches. Daul the new EPP leader mainly goes in for ego massaging, Schultz gives thanks and makes some personal well wishing remarks about a fellow countryman. Graham Watson gives a good speech, if you ask me rather better than any of the Presidential candidate speeches (so watch this space in future). After group leader speeches are finished Barroso gives his welcome and I get back to my office by 1.00pm.

14.00 Do a recorded radio interview for Quadrant on mobile roaming. 3 have announced a package that scraps roaming charges on their own networks, including for data and texts, so let’s hope they are showing the way!! Agree to do a 3 Counties interview at 8.10 in the morning. Then asked to do a BBC World live TV interview in the morning, discover it is at 6.30 (5.30 UK time) and on railways not roaming, but agree all the same.

15.00 We troop off to vote for vice presidents of the Parliament. There are 14 candidates for 14 places, so they are all declared elected. We then have to vote for them anyway to put them in order, which may influence which jobs they are allocated. This means that Diana Wallis has become a vice president. So we have ballot papers again and queue up again. The result of that will be announced later when we come back to vote for the Questors (a kind of admin position). Go back to office and get on with paperwork. Continue messing about with papers then get a call from my French teacher – I was meant to be there at 4.00pm and it is now nearly 4.30! We have it in the diary for tomorrow, but I rush over to do half an hour. As usual we depart from proper lessons and I introduce her to new vocabulary as we discuss the election process (stitch-up, which she did not know in English, is un coup-monté). After that it is back to paperwork.

18.00 Back in the hemicycle for the result of the vice president ballot and voting for questors. This time we do it electronically so I get to press some of the different buttons on my voting console. I do not know why the other positions require paper ballots and this can be done electronically, Danute Budrakaite who sits next to me thinks it is because the paper ballots are more secret, and perhaps the presidential positions are more sensitive. Anyway, this means we can have an almost instant result, rendered just a little humorous by the fact that all the scrutineers have to cluster around the President’s console in order to ‘scrutinise’ the result.

18.30 The new President holds a drinks party. I chat to Olle Scmidt who has been to the ALDE bureau meeting and has a draft of the committee allocations. I have my request of a full membership of ECON and a substitute membership of JURI. Some more additions yet to be made though and it is rumoured that the other political groups have not reached their conclusions yet.

19.00 – 21.00 Into Group. Graham gives us a pep talk speech, celebrating the fact that the Group is now over 100 in membership with the addition of our Bulgarians and Romanians. Graham says he will work towards the next Presidency of the Parliament, so at least his ambition is in the open, even though he does not actually say it is for himself. A new Group photo is taken. We then discuss the three rail transport directives that are going to a second reading vote on Thursday. These relate to liberalisation, driver training and passenger compensation. On the way back to my office I chat with a new Bulgarian colleague, Filiz Husmenova and mention my early start tomorrow for BBC World. She asks whether I have to pay to appear. Somewhat astonished I reply ‘of course not’ and she seems equally astonished that we do not, saying they have to pay for appearances or placing of articles in the media. I must investigate further. I mention this conversation to a French MEP who travels in the same car to our hotels and he is equally surprised. I suppose if there is not enough advertising income and no state funding, the money has to come from somewhere.