What Sharon Did Last Week (30th May - 3rd June)
Monday
On Monday, Sharon left the UK at 7am to arrive at the EP in Brussels at midday. As it was a UK bank holiday she had to fly as Eurostar do not run the early trains and the first train was full. She started by going through some of the many requests for meetings or keynote speeches with her assistant Siobhán - it´s always difficult to find space in the diary!
After catching up with the team, Sharon and Constance went to the first Economic Governance trialogue of the week, which was preceded by a meeting with Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the ALDE group. We are still hoping that the package will be completed by the end of June, so many more hours of negotiation are ahead.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Sharon started the day with a three and a half hour trialogue on Economic Governance. After this, she went straight into a roundtable on CRD4 and cooperative banking, which she co-hosted with Dennis de Jong MEP, which saw representatives from the banking sector debate with the Commission and MEPs on issues such as liquidity management schemes in cooperative banks and common equity.
Sharon could not stay for the whole of the debate as she also had to be in a Lib Dem meeting at the same time, during which they discussed the Multiannual Financial Framework, and special advisor Ed Webber updated the delegation on the latest Lib Dem initiatives in the UK and asked for input from the MEPs.
After the meeting, Sharon was whisked outside to meet Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, the British chef who is backing the Fish Fight campaign, an issue that affects fishermen in South East England, and all over the UK (see press release and photos). Around half of all fish caught in the North Sea is thrown back overboard and die, either because quotas dictate that they are not allowed to catch them, or because people are not familiar with these species, and therefore there isn´t the demand for them, which is resulting in criminal waste.
Immediately afterwards, Sharon returned to the office to meet with Patrick Pearson, from DG Markt in the European Commission, to discuss next steps on the EMIR report.
This was followed by a meeting with the Irish Tax Institute who came in to speak to Sharon about the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) which was proposed in March by the Commission.
At 4pm, Sharon went to the second Economic Governance trialogue of the week, which ended at 6.30pm. Sharon then gave a live phone interview to an Irish radio station who wanted to follow-up on some comments Sharon made last week during the ECON delegation to Dublin.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, Sharon attended the ALDE Group meeting, where one of the items for discussion was the Multiannual Financial Framework, which will determine the EU budget after 2013. The opinion of the special EP committee set up to look at this issue is that the Commission proposal of increasing the EU budget by 5% is reasonable when considering the amount needed to achieve all the upcoming EU projects, which will lead to more jobs and growth. The ALDE position is that more savings can be made, and more efficient use of the budget should be sought.
At midday, Sharon met with HSBC to discuss the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), particularly the issue of transparency and convergence with US law.
After this, Sharon had a phone interview with Risk Magazine who wanted to discuss a particular element of the EMIR report which was voted in Committee last week.
At 2.15pm, Sharon had a catch-up with Ed Webber to discuss latest Lib Dem proposals and where Sharon could feed in to EU-based initiatives.
Just before 3pm, we received a call from Gary Gensler´s office in the US, asking for 5 minutes with Sharon to discuss the latest transatlantic problems on derivatives legislation. Sharon had a quick catch up with Gary on the scope of the European derivatives legislation, what this means for equivalence, and also on the issue of indemnity. The recent ECON vote included a copy-in of some Dodd-Frank text that is not helpful, and which the US is already trying to fix. Sharon explained that now the EU was in the same position and hoped that it would be fixed similarly.
Sharon and Siobhán then hurried downstairs for the prep meeting for the Financial Conglomerates trialogue, which followed onto the trialogue itself. This finished at 6.30pm, and Sharon returned to the office to put some things in the trunk to be shipped to Strasbourg the following week, as Thursday and Friday were public holidays in Brussels.
Thursday
On Thursday, Sharon caught the 10am Eurostar, arriving in Londonat 11am, where she went straight into a meeting with General Electric regarding the CCCTB.
Sharon then popped into the Liberal International HQ over lunchtime. Sharon had a meeting with the Treasury to discuss the state of play on a range of issues on the regulatory agenda. She also raised her concerns on longterm investment and Article 122a of the CRD. This is the so called 'skin in the game' retention clause which Sharon always thought too much of a blunt instrument and is not even working even as the legislation intended. She considers that it needs revision, for example to exclude long only CLO deals.
At 3pm, Sharon caught the tube to Moorgate for a meeting with Legal and General insurance company to discuss Solvency II implementing measures, again with the emphasis on preventing the rules from putting yet another squeeze on long term investment.
Friday
Sharon was in the constituency visiting fishermen in Selsy and doing an interview for Fishing News (see press release and photos).
ENDS