What Sharon Did Last Week (18th - 21st April)
Monday
On Monday, Sharon travelled from the UK to Brussels, departing at 6.30am to arrive at a bit before midday. After a quick catch- up on the week ahead with her team, she headed to a nearby restaurant for a lunch meeting with Jean Baptiste de Franssu, Head of EFAMA, European Fund and Asset Management Association to discuss financial regulation in general including derivatives, Packaged retail Investment Products (PRIPS) and the upcoming MiFID review.
At 14.15 Sharon was called on by Jim Costa, Democratic Congressman from California, who was in Brussels. They discussed the similarities and differences in the way in which the US and the EU have dealt with the economic and financial crises, and the efforts being made to avoid regulatory arbitrage. He was particularly interested in the Economic Governance legislation. Sharon also remarked that legislation is a way to manage risk, and that she wished politicians had been more careful in making that clear: that it is never possible to eliminate risk, only manage it with an eye to reduction.
At 15.15, Sharon and her assistant Constance attended the final Economic Governance compromise amendments meeting, where more ideas were brought to the table, and Sharon and the various rapporteurs worked to find compromises which would be accepted by their groups. There remain some strong differences despite over a hundred hours of negotiation and Sharon had again to decline to postpone the vote due tomorrow: it was necessary for decisions to be made. She also reiterated that all votes would be taken electronically so that an accurate indication of the level of support would be known for each amendment, not just the final reports.
At 18.00, Sharon returned to the office to work on some amendments for the proposed increase in capital for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on which (as chair) she is rapporteur. She also took and made phone calls, texts and emails on economic governance into the night.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Sharon met with Scottish Financial Enterprise at 9.30 to discuss rebuilding trust in the financial sector in Scotland and to talk through the range of legislation that would be affecting them, especially asset management, pensions and insurance industries, which are key to consumers and are affected by all the regulation conceived around 'casino banking'.
At 10.45, representatives from the UK Treasury and FSA came to see Sharon to talk about the Commission proposal for Credit Agreements Relating to Residential Property (which has been given the unfortunate acronym CARRP), which is basically a directive on mortgage lending. Sharon is already engaged in what she calls 'committee wars' on the file because the Internal Market Committee have an interest in some of the consumer information aspects. This requires a careful analysis of which parts belong to which committee - made harder when there are in Sharon's opinion missing parts!
At 11.15 Sharon had to leave to attend a meeting with the ECON Members of the ALDE group to have a final discussion on how to vote on the Economic Governance package later that day. All 6 of the reports were to be voted on together which increased the tension and negotiations continued right up to the final moment.
At 12.30, Sharon spoke to a group of MPs and Senators from Poland who are on a delegation to Brussels ahead of assuming the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU in July. Sharon spoke about the work of her Committee and what would be on the agenda during their Presidency from July to December.
At 15.00, Sharon chaired the ECON Committee, exclusively dedicated to voting on the Economic Governance package. Collectively there were over 2000 amendments though fortunately quite a lot were encompassed by compromises. There were many tricky moments, starting with a motion to postpone the vote by the Socialists, then a record session of 4 hours and 10 minutes of voting taking place with the realisation that time was ticking and the interpretation would stop at any moment. In the end, several interpretation teams stayed on longer than they were due to, but eventually they all had to go. However Sharon managed to obtain agreement from the committee to finish the vote in English only due to the importance of the matter (and that they did not all want to come back first thing in the morning).
Then immediately after the vote the Socialists protested that they did not want to enter negotiation with the Council for a first reading agreement. Sharon countered with a proposal that the committee appoint its negotiation team as usual with a view to attempting a first reading, but postponed the debate on that to the following morning because a debate without interpretation (unlike following a voting list) is not possible without interpretation. Committee finished at 7.40. Needless to say overnight rumblings continued.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, the day started early with Sharon preparing for the next session of committee, then a meeting with the ECON Secretariat at 8.30 at which she discussed how she intended to proceed on Economic Governance, followed by the continuation of ECON committee at 9.00. Business scheduled for 9.00 had to be postponed to take as a first extra item the debate on whether to give the chair, rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs the mandate to start negotiations with the Council and the Commission based on the adoption of the reports the previous evening. After many procedural objections, which Sharon responded to from the Chair, votes were finally taken and the mandate was given. A first informal trialogue had already been provisionally scheduled for the afternoon.
The Committee then continued with its scheduled programme, which saw discussions on Derivatives, Bank Deposit Guarantee Schemes, Insurance Guarantee Schemes, and the Single Euro Payments Area. Sharon intervened in the debate on derivatives for which she is also the ALDE shadow rapporteur, and in the debate on deposit guarantee schemes on which she has filed amendments. She handed the chair to Vice-President Arlene McCarthy for the last hour of the meeting due to the impending trialogue.
At 12.30, the negotiating team for the Economic Governance trialogue had a prep meeting to decide strategy and for Sharon to pull the team together despite high feelings from the minority view positions. The trialogue started at 13.00 and was dedicated to a brief explanation of the voted package, followed by an outline of the working plan and dates for the next few meetings.
At 16.00, Sharon got the Eurostar back to London for Easter, and a well earned break!
Thursday
On Thursday morning, Sharon did two phone interviews; one with a Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal reporter on the result of the Economic Governance vote and the derivatives discussions; and a second one with Derivatives Week to discuss the latest on EMIR (derivatives again).
At 14.00, Sharon had a telephone discussion with Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England and then worked on derivatives. Formal work then closed down for a few days, but many hundreds of pages of documents remain to be read ready for the return on 2 May. Next week Sharon is on visits in the Constituency.