Three votes and a coronation

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.