What Sharon Did Last Week (9th - 13th May)
Monday
On Monday, Sharon travelled from the UK to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, leaving at 6.30am to arrive early afternoon. After catching up with emails in the office, she attended ALDE group, where one of the items on the agenda was the joint EP-Commission transparency register.
Sharon then attended the meeting between ALDE members of the ECON committee to discuss how to vote in Committee later that evening. After this came the UK Lib Dem MEPs meeting to discuss the week's agenda.
At 7pm, Sharon chaired the ECON committee where among other items they had a vote on the opinion on Audit policy - lessons from the crisis. In between all the meetings Sharon was busily checking derivatives amendments and after the Committee meeting she sent some changes to the draft compromise proposals to the Rapporteur ready for the meeting the next day.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Sharon started the day at 8am with a breakfast discussion with other Lib Dem MEPs then at 9.30 she chaired the monthly ECON coordinators meeting, where all the coordinators from the political groups come together and make decisions about Committee business. This month it included the upcoming visits to Poland and Ireland and also negotiating which groups would take charge of which of several legislative items expected to be forthcoming from the Commission soon, including the MiFID2 proposal which not surprisingly was claimed by the EPP as the largest Group.
At 12.00, Sharon went to the hemicycle to vote in plenary. Once back in her office, she had a meeting with the Hungarian Minister for Europe, Eniko Gyori. After this at 2pm she attended the first part of the Conference of Committee Chairs, but handed over to one of her deputies so that she could attend a meeting between shadow rapporteurs on the EMIR dossier as she is the ALDE shadow and the drafting of compromise amendments is at a crucial stage. This lasted until 4pm.
Back in her office, at 4.30pm Sharon was called on by the Australian Ambassador to the EU who has heard Sharon speaking at an event a couple of weeks ago and wanted to know more on the state of play on economic governance and financial legislation. This was followed at 4.30 to 5.45 by a short economic governance trialogue, and then ALDE group meeting where this also appeared on the agenda.
During Strasbourg the plenary debates go on until midnight and there was a late debate on the subject of stress tests following the submission of Oral questions by the three main groups. Sharon was the author of the ALDE question and so had to speak in plenary at around 10pm. You can find her 3 minute speech here.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, Sharon started the day with a 3 hour long economic governance trialogue. Then at 12.00 she went to the hemicycle to vote, including on the transparency register and corporate governance.
Voting at noon was followed by a lunch with ALDE members of ECON in order to discuss the progress of issues, in this instance economic governance, EMIR and SEPA.
After this, Sharon attended the 'solemn signing' of the hedge funds (AIFM) and credit rating agencies directives. This is where the Minister of the Hungarian Presidency and the President of the Parliament formally sign the legislation.
At 3pm, Sharon went to meet a delegation organised by the American Chamber of Commerce to update them on financial legislation, then at 3.45, she met with the economic governance rapporteurs. In fact this was earmarked as a time for another economic governance trialogue but the teams had finished the first trawl through the legislation in the morning and so it was decided to have an internal discussion on the state of play.
In the evening, Sharon attended ALDE group, where Carl Haglund, ALDE member from Finland updated the group on the Finnish election results, and Fiona Hall, Lib Dem leader in the EP, updated the group on the AV referendum result. Again throughout the day tweaking of words and discussion of EMIR amendments took place between Sharon and her assistant Constance and another batch of suggestions sent to the Rapporteur.
Thursday
On Thursday, at 9am Sharon attended another compromise amendments meeting on EMIR with her assistant Constance. At 12.00 she went to vote for the final time this week.
At 2pm, Sharon travelled back to Brussels on the Thalys train, while working on upcoming speeches and answering emails on her blackberry.
Friday
On Friday, Sharon came into the Brussels office and had a diary planning meeting to deal with some of the many diary requests which had built up over the previous week. She also attended to sending a letter to Commissioner Barnier on Insurance Compensation then had a phone call from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to discuss her report on the proposal to increase capital to the EBRD.
At midday, she met with Standard Chartered bank to discuss banking legislation and in particular the state of play of the upcoming legislation on bank capital (Basel3 and CRD4) and also bank crisis resolution. They also spoke briefly about the UK Vickers report and the potential impact on liquidity of ring fencing; Sharon had seen Sir John Vickers before he made his report and this was one of the issues that she had raised then.
After this Sharon took the Eurostar back to the UK, armed with lots of weekend homework from her assistants!