Payments, Audio Visual Media Services

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