Damages Actions, Mazars missed

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.