Van den Burg

5.30 Off to Luton airport. I bid goodbye to other regular travellers I may not see again when the flights change in September. I finish off the blog for last week on the plane. We get to Basle approximately on time, car is there and so Austrian MEP Johannes and I get to the Parliament just before noon (11 am UK time). Being first in I unpack my trunk and all the other stuff we have locked in the cupboard (my mini fridge got stolen last year). Having unpacked I investigate emails and other correspondence. Check through the amendments that other Groups have filed on the van den Burg report.

15.30 Go down to Group. Nothing hugely relevant to me but I am keeping a watch out for things popping up from various committees other than my own. I get 1 minute to speak on the van den Burg report and they forget to give me time on TRIPS (but I see the Secretary general who says he will fix it, so that will be another one minute)

17.30 Our UKLib Dem delegation meeting (LDEPP). We exchange views about items coming up for votes where we may have to fight our corner in Group. Possible controversies are on postal services, the report on the employment green paper and the one that has been constantly on my desk, the van den Burg report on the financial services white paper. The biggest problem we have however seems to be how can we get all twelve of us in one place to have our photo taken.

18.00 I leave LDEPP early to get to Working Group A to discuss the van den Burg report. Those of us there reach an agreed line on the various amendments in from other groups and I get agreement to ask for a split vote to take ‘investment banks’ out of a paragraph that flags up the consolidation of firms offering financial services to large listed companies, especially in the field of audit, Credit rating and investment banks. I think the statement is true about audit firms (less than a handful that can do the big audits) and credit rating agencies, but there is not the same order of concentration with investment banks and that dilutes the point we are making about audit firms. Margarita is not there, who is the shadow, and I point out that she may have a differing view on a couple of points. However, everyone there agrees the lines that Wolf and I want to take.

19.00 Back to the office, paperwork and working out how much I can squeeze into one minute on the financial services report. The shorter the speech the harder it is. I take the opportunity to leave ‘early’ at 20.30.