Coming week – 7 to 13 February

It’s a busy one, with several Commissioners in town

Monday 7 February

Commissioner Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) is in London at the Business for New Europe seminar “Building a Digitial Single Market”

Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn (Research, Innovation and Science) is in London, meeting the UK Minister for Universities and Science David Willetts, Government Chief Scientific Adviser Sir John Beddington and making a speech at the Royal Society

Foreign and Commonwealth Office launches a new website highlighting the opportunities for careers in the EU

Tuesday 8 February

Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski (Financial Programming and Budget) visit London and addresses the House of Lords European Select Committee

Commissioner John Dalli (Health and Consumer Policy) meets President of Diageo Europe Andrew Morgan in Brussels

Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn (Research, Innovation and Science) meets Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Michael Russell in Brussels

Commissioner Maria Damanaki (Maritime Affairs and Fisheries) and Commissioner Connie Hedegaard (Climate Action) meet the Scottish Minister for Environment and Climate Change Rosetta Cunningham in Brussels.

Wednesday 9 February

HRH the Prince of Wales attends the International Sustainability Roundtable in Brussels, hosted by Commission Presidency José-Manuel Barroso

BBC Director General Mark Thompson meets Commissioner Androulla Vassilliou (Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth) in Brussels. Also meets Commissioner Michel Barnier (Internal Market and Services) on 10 February

Opening of Mimicry, an exhibition of 3D fashion photographs from Slovenia at Europe House, Smith Square

Thursday 10 February

Commissioner Gunther Oettinger (Energy) visits London, where he meets the Minister for Europe David Lidington, Minister for Energy and Climate Change Charles Hendy and makes a speech at the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security of King’s College London

Friday 11 February

Commissioner László Andor (Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion) is in London, speaking at the conference “What future for Europe? What role should the UK play?”

Commissioner Michel Barnier (Internal Market and Services) meets the Chairman of the UK Financial Services authority Lord Adair Turner in Brussels.

Coming Week beginning 18 October

Monday 18 October

Anti-trafficking Day

FCO event on getting more British graduates interested in EU careers. Jonathan Scheele and I will be taking part in the panel discussion.

Wednesday 20 October

EU Sport Summit being held at the Oval, organised by CCPR

Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs and Crisis Management, Kristalina Georgieva meeting Baroness Amos, Member of the House of Lords and UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Thursday 21 October

Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neeli Kroes visits the UK, including a meeting with Ed Vaizey, UK Minister for Communication, Culture and the Creative Industries, and the Hello Digital event in Birmingham. (to 22 October)

Baby you can drive my car

There’s so much going on today, what with those terrible fires in Australia, Premier League managers being sacked left, right and centre and all the hoo-ha about bankers’ bonuses, that I suspect Neelie Kroes’ meeting with the roundtable to discuss the future of the car block exemption may have gone unnoticed. I wrote about this issue in September, when it hit some of the papers. Today Kroes gave a “cast iron guarantee” that she would “not agree to any change to the rules that will make life harder for independent repairers”. She  also said that the Commission “will not use competition policy to put unnecessary barriers in front of efforts to help the industry survive and adapt”.

Coming back to the fires, it beggars belief that anybody could deliberately start those fires, knowing how often Australia suffers. What is going on in the heads of these people? When I was Science Spokeswoman, we did a report every year about the previous season’s fires, as well as showing the system developed for monitoring and warning about fires. The 2007 report says for Italy, just to take an example:

The most worrying aspect is the increase in arson that, in percentages, is the highest since 1998 and concerns the cause of nearly 7000 fires ; it has more than doubled since last year.

If you have friends or family in Australia, I hope they are safe and well. It does make you appreciate the good things that you have.

For me that was very evident this weekend, with three of my closest friends from Brussels coming over to stay with me, and while they were here we managed to catch up with loads of other friends. The best weekend I’ve had in years. We went to Strictly Live, which was hilarious fun, and also managed to catch Derek Jacobi as Malvolio in Twelfth Night as part of the Donmar in the West End season  – what a pleasure to see one of the greats in action. Not even the uselessness of London’s transport could get us down – neither the Northern Line nor the Jubilee line was working (fairly crucial if you’re going from Balham to the O2) so we drove, a trip of 11 miles that took 1.5 hours – an average speed of 7.33 miles per hour by my reckoning.