What Sharon Did Last Week (6th - 10th June)
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 on emails in her office, Sharon attended the ALDE group meeting.
This was followed by a prep meeting with ALDE members of ECON where they discussed the report on subscription by the EU to additional shares in the capital of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), for which Sharon is rapporteur. This was not a dossier she had sought but anything that other MEPs are not prepared to do has to be done by the Chair.
She then took a call from Mario Draghi concerning the arrangements for his Hearing before the ECON committee the following week. Mario Draghi is the nominee to replace Jean-Claude Trichet as the President of the European Central Bank.
At 5pm, Sharon attended the Lib Dem meeting at which the upcoming agenda for the plenary was discussed.
At 7pm, Sharon chaired the ECON Committee, during which they held a vote on the EBRD, and later had an exchange of views with President of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, and Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, which ended at 9pm.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Sharon started the day with an epic coordinators meeting covering upcoming ECON issues such as the hearing of Mario Draghi, access to expert groups which take place in the Commission, the ECON delegation to the IMF, and generally the workload of the Committee currently, which is reaching unmanageable levels! Smaller political groups are concerned they do not have the resources to cover all the trialogues.
At midday, Sharon went to the hemicycle to vote, including on the transport of eurocash cross-border.
At 2pm, Sharon chaired the first of five trialogues on economic governance planned for the week. Due to a timing clash with the meeting of the conference of committee chairs she had to juggle substitutions so that one of the ECON vice Presidents who was familiar with Economic Governance opened the trialogue whilst she and the committee Secretary General, Adolfo, went to the start of the Committee of Conference Chairs meeting where Sharon intervened on the request from other committees to play an active role in an ECON dossier. Sharon and Adolfo then went to the trialogue, leaving another member of the Secretariat to take notes on any matters in the Chairs meeting.
After the trialogue, which ended at 5pm,Sharon took a call from Andrea Enria, the chair of the European Banking Authority, to discuss the bank stress tests procedure. There had also been some rather extreme comments in the press on the legitimacy of the EBA and Andrea Enria, which Sharon considered totally unfounded given the legislation that had been passed to set up the authorities and the appointment procedure, including approval by the European Parliament, which Andrea Enria had been through.
At 6pm, after the call and a catch up on emails,Sharon returned to another Economic Governance trialogue, which went on until 8pm.
Wednesday
Wednesday started with an Economic Governance trialogue at 8.30am which went on until voting time at midday. After votes, Sharon did a TV interview for prime time Irish News, and another interview for Portuguese radio, and then returned to her office to speak to Hungarian Europe Minister, Enikő Győri about the latest developments on economic governance.
At 2pm, Sharon had another diary clash with two simultaneous trialogues running, one on economic governance and another on short selling. Sharon chose to chair the short selling one, having a briefed the Vice President available for Economic Governance which was also slower moving.
At 3pm, Sharon had a third timetable clash and had to excuse herself briefly to attend the solemn signing of the Hedge Funds directive, AIFMD, with rapporteur Jean-Paul Gauzes, President of the EP, Jerzy Buzek, and Hungarian Europe Minister, Enikő Győri. Sharon's amendments and legal affairs opinion had played a big part in making the directive workable, but there had been some 30 hard fought trialogues to achieve that result. Ceremony over in a few moments, she then returned to the trialogue.
At 6pm, Sharon went to ALDE group where they discussed progress with the Economic Governance package among other things.
Thursday
On Thursday, Sharon chaired the final Economic Governance trialogue of the week until midday, when she went to vote.
At 2pm, Sharon got the Thalys train back to Brussels, working on her blackberry en route.
Friday
Friday morning started with a breakfast meeting at 8.30am in Sharon´s office with Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier, and his colleagues.Sharon usually meets with the Commissioner in Strasbourg but his plane had been stranded in Canada, so it was useful to be able to squeeze it in. They caught up on the latest developments in the ECON agenda, the effect on the legislative timetable of second readings rather than first reading agreements which looks like it may happen on some dossiers and could jeopardise meeting the G20 timetable (which in Sharon's view was probably too ambitious on some of the timing taking into account the realities of the legislative procedures across the world). They also touched on the Commissioner´s recent trip to the US and transatlantic relations.
At 9.30am,Sharon gave a phone interview to an Irish journalist on the Irish bailout and other issues.
Sharon used the remainder of the morning to go through the diary for the weeks leading up to recess, and ensure there was enough time for trialogues and political meetings, while trying to fit in as many meetings as possible to get a good feel for all different sides´ views on current financial services legislation.
At 2.30pm, Sharon caught a Eurostar back to London, and travelled home.