11 – 14 December Plenary Week, Strasbourg

This is a Strasbourg Plenary week, full of parliament debates and votes. We have all packed trunks to go – MEPs, assistants, Parliament staff etc. For almost all of it is more awkward to get to Strasbourg than to Brussels. I get the 7.20 flight to Basle from Luton and transfer by car. Which means getting up at about 4am. So as we often say, Strasbourg week starts badly and only gets worse (especially if you end up with speaking time at midnight).

Guildford FSB

I am travelling back to the UK today instead of last night as this is a better way to get to Guildford, connecting at Waterloo, than doing battle on the M25 on a Friday afternoon.

So this morning I finish packing up the trunk, clearing my desk and planning next week with Carol because she is not staying for the Strasbourg plenary, so that my stagiere Joe can come instead. (In fact Carol will go to Strasbourg to sightsee with her mother at the weekend and hand over to Joe on Monday).

This afternoon and this evening I am with the Federation of Small Businesses for a workshop and dinner on the EU. I plan to explain how to engage in the process of lobbying MEPs effectively.

Patents and Property

9.00 Arrive, rather wet, at the Conrad. People are arriving for a two day world conference on IP, which is why we put my dinner yesterday. However, I am here to participate in a meeting on the ‘fringe’ for Truffles 100, which is the top 100 software companies in Europe. I miss the Truffles reception desk but meet Ron Zink of Microsoft who is here for the main conference and he points me in the right direction. Feel quite miserable I am not doing the main conference, but I am spread thinly enough already.

In the Truffles event there are two panel sessions. Commissioner Reding is there to wind up the first. The issues of business software patents and procurement come up. She ducks on patents, deferring to McCreevy. I resist asking whether that is what she does in the college. Those present gave a very eloquent explanation of why we need US style business software patents. This is the first time I have heard this from European companies and I am surprised. I think they have missed the boat, nevertheless it was good that the Commissioner heard it.

The Commissioner leaves and I wind up the session, dealing with issues from both panels. Lots of questions on software, patents and EPLA. I tell them that this is the first time I have heard European voices asking for business software patents and that just about everbody is against it (including me, though I confess their argument had some good points). I tell them it is not on the radar at the moment. The Gowers report is against it as well. I am able to recyle the information from Tuesday’s breakfast of procurement (happy coincidence) and I am asked about procurement of software for stock exchanges. This lead into an explanation of how I believe that if there is a merger of a US and European stock exchange then US Sarbanes Oxley regulation could be imposed if they share a technology platform. This would be one very good reason to buy European (only I think that is NOT what the committee of European supervisors is proposing). I spoke on this Sarbanes Oxley point and shared technology platforms in plenary some while ago, with much approval from ECON colleagues. Maybe I should do a Parliamentary question on it.

The meeting goes on much longer than planned so with chat afterwards I get back to my office at about 13.15. Fill up with cups of tea and try to catch up with UK member of the ECON Secretariat who has had outrageous (and I believe wholly untrue) allegations made about him in the Austrian press by an Austrian MEP.

14.00 Meet with chief patent counsel of Intel, also over here for the IP conference. He has also seen Toine Manders. He appears happy with the line I am taking on Criminal Sanctions for IP. We chat about how things are going generally and he says I should be doing a presentation to the IP Conference.
15.00 Check through purchasing price parity papers with Carol, pack my trunk for Strasbourg next week with all the papers I will need. Collect plane ticket for Strasbourg Brussels next week and buy Eurostar tickets. Collect items for speech tomorrow and somehow it is 20.30 before I leave. On the way out a Finnish colleague stops me to say he has heard I got my amendments through Group and he is supportive. I am seen talking with him by another colleague (Jan Mulder) who jokingly asks if I am organising a coup.

More IP and TV

9.00 Straight to group after checking emails. A long discussion takes place on Roma and their treatment, which has been held over from yesterday. Also a discussion on the rest of the ‘package’ of how positions will be shared out among the national delegations. There has been a suggestion that the number of vice-presidents per committee be increased to 4. This is obviously a ruse to prevent anyone having to give anything up to accommodate Bulgarian and Romanian colleagues. Andrew Duff says it will take great skill then to avoid being a VP and can he have Group agreement to vote against it in the constitution committee. Although for a few of the busier committees it might be useful, it is generally agreed we think it a bad idea and agree to vote against it.

Chris then explains the deal on REACH for plenary. Rather aggravatingly, just as we get onto the important plenary items a speaking time limit is introduced because we have spent so much time on the other items. Discontent is expressed that this is again happening on legislative items. Back to REACH and there is general acceptance of the negotiated package, but discontent that too much of the negotiation with Council means things become secret rather than transparent. Also, only the biggest issues get dealt with and lots of the smaller things that are important to the Parliament get lost. I agree, this is what I can see happening on Payments. We should try to achieve a better solution.

We then discuss Audiovisual Media. Ignasi takes 25 minutes to introduce it, most of which is background. Other speakers are then limited to 2 minutes each. This is not fair on those, like me, who have submitted significant numbers of amendments, on key point, to Group. I make a bit of a fuss about it and how legislative items should be top of the agenda. Desk banging and clapping from colleagues in support (again!). Others who have made similar complaints in the past speak up, so let’s see what happens in the future. We get towards voting time and Lib Dems and Germans thin on the ground so I signal to Carol to go out and get summoning. Impressive response and I need not have panicked on time because Ignasi takes another 13 minutes to wind up! This really is not fair to give him so much time to bash the amendments I have no time to explain. The same applies to the Italian amendments even though they are the opposite direction to mine. He does not like my amendments in the main, but I win the important votes thanks to full voting from Lib Dems, Germans and some last minute switching of Dutch votes. So we will be submitting my amendments, which will keep the sports organisations, channel 4 and ITN happy. Meeting ends at 12.35

13.00 Down to the Member’s restaurant for lunch with the Board of SEEDA.

14.30 An interview for one hour with Dr Sebastian Haunss of the University of Hamburg Institute of Political Science. All about IP again. He records everything I say. He asks questions about what influence I think others have in the Patents debates. I am not sure he realises that I am so busy with my head down doing what needs to be done that I have not been looking at it from that perspective.

16.00 – 17.00 Meeting with the Commission on Purchasing Price Parities, for which I am the Rapporteur (main). We compare the Commission and Council proposals and I check some of the queries I have. It all looks straightforward.

17.30 Meet with ECON secretariat on Fiscal Fraud for which I am also Rapporteur. We discuss having a Hearing and an outline of possible invitees.

18.30 Just about time to print off the 141 pages of the Gowers Report on IP, browse briefly and head off to my European Patent Reform dinner.

19.00 Dinner.It is run on Chatham House rules. We go through a highly specialised analysis of EPLA and the role of the EU institutions versus that of Member States, lead by Jaques Borgeois. We examine all kinds of scenarios. It is great to be among IP professionals for this and just what we needed. We agree that having a meeting like this every couple of months would be a good thing.

Open competition and Intellectual Property

8.00 – 9.30 Attend a working breakfast on procurement, in particular for SMEs. Turns out to be very interesting. Proposals are afoot to encourage public authorities to commission innovative solutions and technology, ideally from EU companies, rather than just buy the leading (often US) solution. In other words get out of the mentality of ‘nobody is ever sacked for buying IBM’. DG infosoc are publishing a manual; they seem to be suggesting some kind of preferential treatment.

It is then pointed out by Comptia in their presentation that Mandelson has said we have to have open competition, how can we tell other countries to be open then do something different. The representative from DG Enterprise is then put on the spot to try and bridge the gap between these two views. His solution is to address attitude, rather than have favouritism, and it seems they are bringing out a manual too! Another of the industry representatives points out that the EU constantly bemoans having a fragmented market, and that it will never stop if we have this fragmented approach in the Commission and pleads for them to get their act together. I agree but resist doing a bit of table thumping.

We get to the end of the presentations and all the other MEPs except Pia Noora Kauppi, who is the host, leave. Me being naive again, this means Pia Noora has no option but to put me on the spot to respond! I say that as a Brit and a Liberal it is not surprising that I agree the competition line expounded by Mandelson, but that having a more flexible, entrepreneurial attitude and getting out of the ‘buy safe’ mentality is important.

9.30 Get to office for meeting with David Howarth MP, find he has been delayed so I do a note on Russia and IP to send down to Working Group C (foreign affairs) in case it comes up before I get there. David arrives and we have useful exchanges on issues in his DTI portfolio which covers intellectual property. He tells me that some of the economic analysis I have heard (and which I think is wrong), using the ex-ante and ex-post value of patents and responding to them as monopolies, is out of date economics and it is now accepted that patent have to be treated like property. Halleluiah – nice to find an economist I can agree with, but I thought that was always why it was called intellectual property. Anyway I update him on the various other goings on and this is all very useful. We wonder what will be in the Gowers Report (the UK Treasury Report on IP) that comes out tomorrow.

10.15 Zoom down 7 floors to group room to see if Working Group C still on. Discover everyone leaving as attendance too low, so I speak to Annamie Neyts and give her my note on Russia. Go back upstairs to more paperwork and finalising arrangements regarding my dinner on Patents with Jaques Borgeois that I am having tomorrow. Industry attendance very good, no other MEPs but then it was rather short notice. Given that most of the attendees are patent attorneys, we may in any event be rather too specialist. The venue has had to change so Joe has to notify everyone again.

12.30 LDEPP with David Howarth. I am in the chair as Emma is away (we rotate the chair every 6 months but the whip is always the stand-in). We have a good exchange with David over the eternal problem of how to integrate better between London and Brussels. David is of the view that ‘Europe’ is not a separate policy item, it is something that runs through all or almost all policy. We agree but fear it is the forgotten bit. Just like we have environmental relevance and links explained in all our policy, we could do with the same for the European aspects.

13.15 David leaves and we continue with the ordinary business. We review the Strasbourg agenda and agree on who will cover the blanks. Bill Newton-Dunn says he is very pleased with the new whip routines (as our previous whip he probably knows how much effort it takes). We agree we will need proxies. I get back to the office by 2ish but the afternoon disappears in into papers and phone.

17.00 Down 7 floors to Group meeting. Russia is on the agenda so I say my bit about the Part lV of their new civil code, pointing out that in the Russia-EU summit papers it says we want to be closer on IP that just as the WTO provides, but in the new civil code there are backward moves and it does not fulfil TRIPS, let alone go further. I scribble a proposed amendment for the resolution and it is agreed that the negotiators will try and get it in to the final cross-party resolution. I retreat temporarily to my office to phone home only to receive a rallying call from Andrew Duff’s assistant. I and other Lib Dems dutifully troop into Group, including Chris who appears to have been plucked from the shower in the gym. Then everyone in Group agrees with Andrew anyway so the rapid response force not really needed, but impressive none the less.

19.00 Take a car to Ambassador’s residence for CBI reception. Share the car with Liz and Charles Tannock and we discuss Emma’s report on Kashmir. The storm clouds gather! Mandelson speaks at the reception then Liz and I go to dinner.

TV and an MP

No formal meetings today, but I aim to have some time in the Brux office to deal with active issues. I leave home at 10.15, which gives me time to finalise amendments and justifications on criminal sanctions for IP infringement. I decide to keep it simple, making criminality dependent upon ‘aggravating circumstances’ rather than just exempting patents, which is the line most others are taking. Horrible time at Heathrow with queues and arrive in office about 3.30 and deal with paperwork.

16.30 Have a visit from UKREP (Simon Jones) on Audio Visual Media. As suspected, the compromises agreed to put to plenary by the rapporteurs of the lead committee (Culture) are not to my or the UK liking. There is concern as to whether we can get one of the Political Groups to table better versions. I had already got my own ready on short news reporting and advertising time.

It is advertising time that is of concern to UKREP and they are basically hoping for the same as my amendment, but I agree to add in the word ‘scheduled’ before 30 minutes to make it absolutely clear that the 30 minutes is the program plus advertising time. I suspect it may only be British pedantry that needs this, but better safe than sorry as we will be the pedants when it comes to interpreting it for UK use.

We discuss the other tricky areas and how we have covered them. We do not know the chances of the EPP going against the Rapporteur for 30 minutes instead of 35, but various Brits and others like Hoppenstedt (the ECON Rapporteur) will be on the job. I am not confident whether I will win in ALDE either as Ignasi has been in on the deal in Culture. I explain that we are already lined up with others to do a 37 signatures job (which is how many MEPs have to sign to get an amendment to Plenary, the other alternative being a Political Group) to get it to plenary if needed, but that not as powerful as an amendment going in from a Group.

We are about finished when Simon is taken violently ill and we have to get the medics in and they take him away in a wheelchair. It looks like food poisoning, but quite a long time since he ate, so we are a bit worried in case it is anything else. (We find out next day he is OK and it was food poisoning)

18.00 Settle down to completing Audiovisual amendments and replying to emails. We also start work on checking the Strasbourg Agenda and allocating responsibilities. This is part of my Whip job. We already know that Audiovisual Media may require a separate UK line unless I win the day in Group, for which purpose we are already making sure we will all be there or have proxy votes lined up. Each MEP can cast a proxy in Group for one other from their national delegation. This is something that we have agreed to be more vigilant on since I became whip and it may be very important this week. There are also quite a few items on the Strasbourg Agenda coming from committees where we do not have a UK Lib Dem, so we will need to share out the checking between us and I make some provisional suggestions where I think there are already areas of overlap or interest ready for our meeting tomorrow. There are still a lot of blanks. I send out emails to interested parties explaining my amendments on Audiovisual media and criminal sanctions for IP.

19.30 Dinner with a few other Lib Dem MEPs and David Howarth MP who is over for a visit. Useful general discussions. I have a session with him tomorrow.

4-8 December 2006 Group Week

This is a Group week in which the only formal meetings are those at which we discuss the amendments and voting for the Strasbourg plenary week, which is always the following week.