What Sharon Did Last Week (11th - 15th April)
Monday
On Monday, Sharon travelled from the UK to Brussels leaving at 5.30am to arrive at 11.00, when she went straight to speak at the EPC Policy Dialogue on Economic Governance on a panel of experts.
At 12.45, she left the EPC event to walk to the Berlaymont building to give a keynote speech (at very short notice) at a Commission event on Project Bonds. The Commission recently published this proposal as a way to fund investment in large infrastructure projects across Europe through public-private partnerships. The Commission acknowledge that some forms of long term investment have dried up as a consequence of banking regulation following the financial crisis (something Sharon warned about). Sharon supports the project bonds in principle, but she considers that some of the restrictions of recent regulation may make it difficult to achieve in its wider context and appear to have been overlooked: insurance and pension funds have new restrictions on them as well as banks. She said that addressing long term investment must be a priority, and should be done alongside regulation not as an afterthought.
After the event, Sharon headed to the office in the European Parliament to deal with emails, the latest state of play on the infamous economic governance package and table last minute amendments on Audit for the ECON report. Sharon was already familiar with this legislation, having contributed to it earlier in JURI committee. Sharon's amendments aim at better competition, addressing the dominance of the big 4 dominant audit firms, in particular via public procurement not always using the big 4.
At 16.00, Sharon had a catch-up over the phone with Walter Radermacher, Director General of EUROSTAT, following on from the meetings in the European Parliament two weeks ago with members of national offices of statistics. She then continued with work on economic governance and other matters. She also began a review of Sir John Vicker's report and her initial response is that the issues which she raised with him such as interaction with EU passporting and movement of capital have been well catered for and so she likes the balance of the report.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Sharon prepared for and then attended a compromise amendments meeting on Economic Governance with her assistant, Constance. As this piece of legislation is so big, and comes in 6 parts (the "6 pack") , and is a major priority for the Parliament, Council and Commission it is taking up a lot of Sharon´s time at the moment as she prepares the way for the vote in committee and prepares herself for chairing the trialogues to come.
At 12.30, Sharon participated in a debate organised by the College of Europe foundation, entitled "What will EU Financial Regulation Actually Deliver?" between herself and Professor Alexandre Lamfalussy, a leading academic, creator of the "Lamfalussy process" and often called the "father of the Euro".
In the afternoon, Sharon attended another compromise amendments meeting on Economic Governance. Due to the varying political stances of the different groups, these meetings to thrash out compromises are quite complex to navigate. Sharon is resisting pressures for the vote in ECON committee to be delayed because she considers the state has been reached at which decisions must be made.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, Sharon attended another compromise amendments meeting on Economic Governance, looking at the general overview this time. At midday she returned to the office for a meeting with Barclays on accounting and IFRS.
This was followed by a meeting with the European Payments Council on SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area. The idea of SEPA is to create a single method of making payments in euros in the form of direct debits and credit transfers, making transactions easier for businesses and consumers. UK banks are also joining in, though not being Eurozone not everything applies, and all this joins up with issues about credit cards, fees and cancellation policies that were aired on the Moneybox program this week. (Although, as usual, it is not reported, a lot of the improvements on conditions come from the Payment Services Directive which Sharon worked on several years ago).
At 14.00, Sharon went to welcome Gertrude Tumpell-Gugerell, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, to the ECON Committee, where she would be one of the speakers at the SEPA hearing. Unfortunately Sharon couldn´t stay to chair the start of the Committee as she had to go to yet another Economic Governance meeting, but she returned at 17.30 in time to take over for the voting on Insurance Guarantee Schemes.
Thursday 
On Thursday, Sharon chaired the ECON Committee from 09.00 - 10.30 which included items on the European Semester and the recapitalisation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The EBRD was set up to assist the transformation of Easter European countries, but since the financial crisis it has widened its reach and is now intending to do more work in the Middle East.
After this, Sharon had a meeting with the ECON Secretariat about several process-related issues on current dossiers.
At 12.00, Sharon went to speak to a visitor's group from Reading and the wider South East region. She told them about her work as Chair of ECON Committee and answered questions related to the European Parliament's role in helping the UK recover from the financial and economic crises.
At 14.00, Sharon chaired an informal trialogue on Short Selling. This was the first of several meetings expected between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council (represented by the Hungarian Presidency, who currently presides over the Council of the EU until July when the Poles take over, in accordance with the 6 month rotation rules). However at the moment there is not a Council position of short selling, so this was just an exchange of views on the Parliament's position and a discussion on the future timetable depending on whether or not the Council reaches a position at the May ECOFIN. If they do not the Parliament intends to vote in Plenary in June. If there is a Council position then negotiation for a first reading deal will start in earnest.
After this meeting, Sharon returned to the office to continue work and negotiation on Economic Governance, and to draft a letter to Commissioner Semeta on double non taxation. This is when multinational companies are able to reduce their tax rate to almost nothing by operating under a combination of different legislation on tax reliefs and profits in different jurisdictions within the EU. Sharon is looking forward to working with the Commissioner to address this anomaly.
Friday
On Friday, Sharon travelled back to the UK to work in her UK office. En route she prepared some information for Danny Alexander on the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base proposal. She then discussed various UK matters with staff, gave telephone interviews to several financial journalists and took calls from Guy Verhofstadt and fellow ECON MEPs on the economic governance package which is still being a bit of a white knuckle ride.