What Sharon Did Last Week (16th - 20th May)
Monday
On Monday, Sharon travelled from the UK to Brussels leaving home at 6.30am to arrive at midday. After catching up with her team, she worked on the EMIR compromise amendments being negotiated and wrote a brief article for Lib Dem news.
At 1.15pm Sharon and the rapporteurs of the Economic Governance six pack went to the Justus Lipsius Council building for a Troika, or tripartite, meeting with the Presidency of the Council, incoming Presidencies (Poland and Denmark) and the Commission represented by Commissioner Rehn. We discussed sovereign debt and the ever present issue of economic governance. The EP are seeking greater transparency and independence from governments of statistics and audit, among other things.
Once back in the office, Sharon caught up with emails and worked on EMIR, Economic Governance and Financial Conglomerates.
Tuesday
On Tuesday morning, Sharon was interviewed by the European Parliament website for the feature "Economic Governance explained". You can read the interview here (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/en/headlines/content/20110429FCS18371/4/html/Economics-Committee-chair-on-economic-governance-package-big-shock-for-Council) .
At 11am Sharon was called on by the Irish Minister for Europe, Lucinda Creighton, to discuss the Irish bailout, the 2012 Irish Presidency of the Council, and the upcoming ECON delegation to Dublin next week.
In the afternoon Sharon continued her work on Economic Governance and EMIR and gave a couple of phone interviews on short selling, following the adoption of a position by the Council at ECOFIN, the meeting of EU Finance Ministers.
At 4pm, Sharon and her assistant Constance attended an Economic Governance trialogue which went on until the evening.
Wednesday
On Wednesday morning,Sharon had intended to work on a speech she would give later in the day on Economic Governance, but instead continued to do battle on EMIR! She was then called on by Sony Kapoor, manager of the international think-tank Re-Define who wanted to discuss macroeconomic matters.
At lunchtime, Sharon went to the Charlemagne building of the Commission to speak at the Brussels Economic Forum. She had been due to participate on the panel entitled "Economic policy in europe - key lessons from the global crisis" but as Sharon had to catch a plane to Poland that evening, she instead spoke at the session " EU economic governance framework in practice - ensuring its robustness" alongside representatives from the Commission, the Bank of Italy and the OECD. A recording of the event is available here
http://webcast.ec.europa.eu/eutv/portal/bef2011_ondemand
After the panel, Sharon was interviewed in the "TV Taxi", slightly worrying her assistant Siobhán as she got driven away! After this, she was taken to the airport to catch a flight to Warsaw for the ECON delegation to Poland, arriving at 10pm at the hotel.
Thursday
On Thursday, Sharon, along with the other members of the delegation, attended a breakfast hosted by deputy Minister responsible for financial services from the Polish Ministry of Finance. They then had a meeting with the President of the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection where they discussed cartels, dominant companies, and so on.
At 11am, they had a meeting with representatives of the EU Affairs Committee of the Polish Parliament, where a whole range of issues were covered, including the EU budget, Financial Transaction Tax, the CCCTB and the European Semester.
This was followed by a working lunch with Polish Parliament and Senate representatives where similar issues were raised.
In the afternoon, they had a meeting with the Vice President of the National Bank of Poland on economic governance, the IMF, and the eurozone; followed by the President of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.
In the evening, there was an official dinner hosted by the Minister of Finance and attended by four deputy Ministers, where Greece was the main topic of conversation. As Chair,Sharon had to field questions and speak all day and evening, which was hard work.
Friday
On Friday morning, the delegation met with the President of the Management Board of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, to discuss EMIR, MiFID and corporate governance; followed by representatives of the employers, trade unions and non governmental organisations, poss. members of the Tripartite Commission for Social and Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Finance.
The delegation ended with a press conference held by Sharon as Chair of the ECON Committee with local and international press.
After the press conference, Sharon had bilateral meetings with the Polish Statistical Office on the draft report on which Sharon is rapporteur entitled "A European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union".
At 6.30pm, Sharon caught a flight to London, arriving home at 9pm.