Key votes on Kashmir and Donnici

9.00 We have an ECON prep meeting at which we discuss who wants to do what of the upcoming work. There is a wish by Andreas Losco to have more detailed discussion of the lines that rapporteurs and shadows take. I think we all agree this is a nice idea but in practice we are not managing to get meetings organised. During the exchanges he refers to the possibility ‘that Sharon may take some extreme Liberal position that the Italian delegation can not agree with’. I take this as a compliment, especially in the context of the ECON committee.

10.00 Back to the office and final checking of recorded votes, the Kashmir voting list and our red lines for what is sufficient to allow us to vote positively at the end.
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12.00 Votes. We have the vote on Donnici and they vote not to approve his credentials. Graham Watson gets up says it is illegal and that as we say in the UK ‘see you in court’. The Kashmir votes take ages but we eventually pass a combination that it just about OK for everyone. I am slightly annoyed as the Socialists still seem to only vote for their amendments and never for ours even when ours are sometimes better. If we did the same to them, the end result would be bad news for the content of the report. This should be above party politics.

14.00 I have a delegation from the UK permanent representation and the UK cabinet office to discuss patents.

15.00 Meeting with Fidelity Iternational about UCITS, Mifid and retail savings.

16.00 Catch up with phone calls, emails and packing. Get car to Basle at 7pm. Traffic after arrival at Luton a nightmare (do they not realise lots of flights get in around 11 pm and it is a stupid time to close the motorway) so we get home after midnight which my body clock thinks is after 1am.