What Sharon Did Last Week (14th - 18th March)
What Sharon did last week (14 - 18 March)
On Monday, Sharon travelled from the UK to the European Parliament in Brussels, leaving at 6.30am to arrive at midday. Sharon immediately set to work on some final stage drafting for her amendments to the derivatives legislation (called EMIR). Sharon is submitting a comprehensive set of amendments aimed at technical correctness, competitiveness and workability, in particular to ensure that end users like SMEs and pension funds do not suffer excessive costs that would just get passed on to the public [click here for the press release]. Sharon was deep in her amendments when she was given an emergency call to attend a meeting on economic governance with the Hungarian Ambassador. The Hungarians are the rotating Presidency of the EU at present and it is very important to them to pursue the economic governance package.
Sharon then had a series of phone interviews: one with Money Marketing magazine on last week´s financial transaction tax vote; one with Incisive Media on short selling; one with The Trade News who were doing a piece on interoperability and competition in derivatives legislation; and then a face to face interview with Bloomberg on the Capital Requirements Directive, proposed measures to strengthen bank capital requirements for counterparty credit exposures arising from derivatives, repo and securities financing activities.
The Swedish Permanent Representative to the EU (Swedish Ambassador to the EU) Dag Hartelius came to meet Sharon and discuss the latest Council position on the Economic Governance package. In the evening Sharon hosted a dinner for National Parliaments, where representatives from the financial committees of Member States came to Brussels to attend their annual joint meeting with the ECON committee. This year it was timed to form part of the first ever coordination of national budgets under the so-called 'European Semester' and to discuss the related legislation on economic governance.
On Tuesday, at 8am Sharon chaired a special meeting with French Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde, and German Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schauble, and Members of the ECON Committee. The meeting was to discuss the previous week's Eurozone conclusions on the Europact.
At 9am Sharon then moved on to chair the ECON Committee where the National Parliaments´ event continued with a discussion with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy on the Europact and the Economic Governance legislation package, followed by a debate on the European Semester, a six-month period every year during which the Member States' budgetary and structural policies will be reviewed to detect any inconsistencies and emerging imbalances. Afterwards, Sharon attended the ALDE ECON meeting where they discussed how ALDE should vote in the following day´s Committee, on such reports as Corporate Governance, and Credit Rating Agencies. Sharon then chaired the afternoon Committee session, which had an exchange of views with Commissioner Olli Rehn, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, who is also President of the Euro Group and the Hungarian Finance Minister Gyorgy Matolscy and afterwards held a mini press conference with Jean-Claude Junker and Gyorgy Matolscy. Sharon was very pleased that Jean-Claude Junker said it was time that Germany stopped 'torturing Ireland', a matter she has been pursuing. After this, Sharon went back to the office to finalise amendments on derivatives with her assistant Constance which were due in the next day.
On Wednesday, Sharon chaired the ECON Committee, with the hearing of Peter Praet, the nominee for Executive Member of the Board of the European Central Bank, where Mr Praet stressed the need for Europe's citizens to have ownership of economic governance reforms. He was approved by acclamation in the vote during the afternoon´s Committee.
At 3pm, Sharon chaired the second part of ECON, starting with over an hour of voting, which involves voting for, against or abstaining on a long list of Members´ amendments to reports. The Chair´s task is to ensure the vote is done in a proper and timely manner in order to avoid the whole agenda slipping - not always easy with so many amendments and last minute changes! At the end of each vote, the report is then voted on as a whole with the amendments taken into account, and the Members (usually) applaud the rapporteur when they have successfully guided a report through. During the day Sharon's amendments on derivatives were filed - 159 in total.
On Thursday, again at 9am Sharon chaired the ECON Committee, which saw the hearings of the Executive Director positions for the new European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs); namely Verena Ross for ESMA, the European Securities and Markets Authority; Carlos Montalvo for EIOPA, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority; and Adam Farkas for EBA, the European Banking Authority. Sharon believes that all three gave a good performance in their hearings, and would carry out their respective roles very well. However all will not be known until next week and there are some controversies raging. It was observed by a Swedish member that its fantastic to have such a highly regarded female candidate in Verena Ross for a senior post, as the majority of senior economic and financial positions are normally filled by men. The Committee will vote by secret ballot on Tuesday 22 March, and then the Parliament as a whole will vote on the Thursday in the mini-Plenary session which takes place in Brussels, rather than in Strasbourg.
Also on Thursday morning, a group of students from the University of Portsmouth came to Brussels to be shown around the Parliament and to hear about the work Sharon is carrying out in ECON Committee. Sharon had planned to speak to them herself but as the Hearings for the ESA chairs were arranged at late notice after their nomination, her chairing duties had to take over.
After the Committee, Sharon had a meeting with a representative from General Electric Capital to discuss the upcoming vote on Financial Conglomerates in Committee and EMIR. At 2.30pm, she joined the rapporteurs for the Economic Governance package and went to the Council building, the Justus Lipsius on Schuman roundabout, at the President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy´s invitation, to discuss the interaction of the various proposals on Economic Governance.
Upon returning to the EP, Sharon went through the voting list for next week´s vote on Financial Conglomerates with her assistant Siobhan and gave recommendations on how the Liberal Group, ALDE, should vote. Each MEP has the right to vote how they wish, but they usually look to the Shadow or Rapporteur from their group to get their informed opinion. At 7pm, Sharon had a phone conference with Ed Davey, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to share ideas on banking reform, corporate governance, and the proposed EU patent, which would make it easier for people in the UK to protect their intellectual property throughout the EU, instead of having to apply in several countries and in several different languages.
On Friday, Sharon travelled back to the UK, stopping in London for a roundtable with Centre Forum, a liberal Think Tank, to exchange views on her work and forthcoming legislation. This included discussion on a range of financial legislation, audit, economic governance and the recent Commission proposal for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) and the competing proposal from the Eurozone countries for just a common (not consolidated) corporate tax base. The UK is not in favour of either because of fear that a common base would creep to a common rate, though there are benefits for business. The Eurozone countries are trying to bully Ireland on this in return for lowering their loan interest rate, and there is no doubt they are trying to force them to change their tax rate too - although as Sharon pointed out to the French and German finance ministers on Tuesday, Ireland's headline 12.5% rate is not the lowest (as they seem to accuse them of) because their tax base is wider.