What Sharon did last week (4 - 8 July)
Monday
On Monday, Sharon travelled from her constituency to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, leaving home at 6.30am and arriving at 1pm.
Upon arriving in Strasbourg, Sharon set to work answering urgent emails and writing her short speeches for the debates in Plenary on derivatives (EMIR) and Financial Conglomerates.
At 3.30pm, she went to ALDE group, where they discussed how the Group should vote on Short Selling, and the report on aviation security, focussing on body scanners.
At 5pm, Sharon went to the hemicycle and spoke three times in quick succession. In derivatives she had two speeches, one as the draughtsperson on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee and one as the Group shadow in ECON (Click for her speeches 1, 2 and 3).
She then had to leave the debates at 7pm, to chair the ECON Committee, which began with a discussion on interconnection of central, commercial and companies registers and continued with an exchange of views with the Polish Minister for Finance, Jacek Rostowski who is the President in Office now that the Poles have the rotating Council Presidency. They discussed how to proceed with the Economic Governance six pack as well as the Polish Presidency´s Economic and Financial priorities for the next six months.
At 9pm, Sharon chaired the ECON Coordinators meeting, where they discussed a possible legislative own initiative report on access to basic banking, following the Commission´s decision to issue only a recommendation, rather than proper legislation, despite it having been in the legislative programme; the draft calendar for 2012; and how to structure and schedule public hearings and workshops in the future.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Sharon started the day by checking all of the final amendments to Plenary on the 4 ECON reports were in order. She then met with the Polish Undersecretary of State for Finance, Wiesław Szczuka, to discuss the Committee´s work.
At 11am, the Head of the ECON Secretariat came to see Sharon to go over her participation in the Conference of Committee Chairs later in the day.
At midday, Sharon went to Plenary to vote, including on Financial Conglomerates, Investor Compensation Schemes, Short selling, and Derivatives - the latter two voting on all of the amendments but not the final vote on a legislative resolution, as there is still not final agreement with Council. Hopefully the Parliament's vote will help move Council into finding a solution in trialogue.
At 1pm, Sharon attended a press conference on EMIR (derivatives) along with the rapporteur Werner Langen (You can watch the video here: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/wps-europarl-internet/frd/vod/player?eventCode=20110705-1330-SPECIAL&language=en&byLeftMenu=researchotherevents&category=SPECIAL&format=wmv#anchor1 )
At 2pm, Sharon went to the Conference of Committee Chairs to represent ECON. Some items on the agenda included the use of enhanced cooperation on reports where more than one Committee has a vested interest in an area, such as the current report on Mortgages, which will be an ECON lead, with the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) contributing on many areas. The meeting lasted over two hours. Sharon, as is often the case, had to input on several items including the Economic Governance Package and also gave an analysis of the progress of the European Semester.
At 4.30pm, Sharon gave a phone interview to FX Weekly, a financial magazine, on the outcome of the EMIR vote.
At 5.15pm, Sharon went to speak to Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the ALDE group, about the state of play on Economic Governance. She stayed on for the regular ALDE group meeting until 7pm and then headed back to her office and paperwork to prepare for the next day..
Wednesday
On Wednesday, Sharon read the financial aspects of the Liberal Democrat Conference paper and came up with some comments and suggestions to send back via the EU Lib Dem leader, Fiona Hall. Discussions with various parties continued on the state of play on Economic Governance, many people asking Sharon 'now what?'.
At midday, Sharon went to the hemicycle to vote on a report on body scanners in airports, where it was decided that they should only be put in place if they do not cause harm to passengers and don´t breach their legal rights; and surveillance of BSE cases, where it was decided that the ban on feeding animal protein to non-ruminants, like pigs, could gradually be lifted if further safeguards are put in place.
In the afternoon, Sharon had a meeting with Economic Governance rapporteurs, where it was finally decided that the package would be voted on during the first Plenary session in September, at which point we hope that a deal will have been reached with the Council on the outstanding issues.
At 4.30pm, Sharon met with Professor Muhammed Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and author of Banker to the Poor. They discussed social business and possible future collaboration, please click here for press release and picture.
At 5.30pm, Sharon went to an extraordinary ALDE bureau meeting to discuss the Arab Spring. At 6.30pm this became a regular ALDE meeting with the wider group and included a discussion on the state of play on Economic Governance.
Thursday
On Thursday, Sharon chaired a workshop at 9.30am on the Capital Requirements Directive where the Policy Unit presented an insightful impact assessment on what the CRD legislation would have on banks. In the discussion that followed it became clear the academics presenting the paper shared Sharon's concerns about various issues such as lack of diversity in capital and liquidity of sovereign debt. The CRD4 proposal is due to come out in late July.
After this, at 10.30am, Sharon met with the MD of Commerzbank to discuss CRD4, the Greek crisis, and financial regulation in general.
At midday, Sharon went to the hemicycle to vote for the final time before recess.
After votes, Sharon and her assistant Constance worked on some final amendments to the JURI opinion on Insolvency Proceedings in EU Company Law.
At 1pm, Sharon and the team went to catch the Thalys back to Brussels, checking emails and reading reports en route.
Friday
On Friday Sharon travelled back to the constituency via London, stopping off to have an early lunch with her son Damian.