Friday, 11 May 2007
Fruit farms in Kent
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.
Thursday, 10 May 2007
Postponed vote, so a day of paperwork
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.
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.
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Donnici, Group and Labour Law
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.
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.
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
ECN, Solvency II and Equitable Life comes to the vote
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.
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.
Monday, 7 May 2007
CEIOPS
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.
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.
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
Debate on Donnici
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.
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.
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