What Do M.E.Ps do? Andrew gives you a brief insight into a week in the life of an M.E.P.

Saturday 2 November

Most weekends, there are press articles to write: this time, one for the Cambridge Evening News and another for the famous North Norfolk Chronicle. I go early to the hairdresser and consult Sue, chief cutter, who lives near Bury St Edmunds. I choose the euro as the theme for both articles. Sue confirms that Romano Prodi’s recent remark that the Stability Pact is ‘stupid’ needs some clarification. On the basis that the best form of defence is attack I make an unapologetic advocacy of the case for the euro. The CEN article will bring a round of vituperative letters.

Drive to Norwich through bright weather. Thetford forest looks wonderful. Norfolk Lib Dems are holding their annual county conference. There are lively debates, mainly between councillors from different local authorities. One speaker makes a startling appeal for the abolition of the nation state. Norman Lamb leaps to its defence. I give a short speech before the usual excellent lunch, prepared by the local party. The day is only marred by the front page of the Evening News, which cites the Lib Dem transport chief of Norwich City as saying he would never travel by bus. Ian Couzens, our leader of the Council, looks suitably long-suffering.

Back to my Cambridge office, this time through heavy grey cloud. Work through a pile of paper left for me by Tim Huggan, my constituency officer, and then home via Tesco. Finish the two articles and dispatch a letter to The Times defending the work of the constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe. Shirley Williams phones to talk about reform of the House of Lords procedure for the scrutiny of EU affairs.

Bedford Lib Dems are holding a party to celebrate the great mayoral campaign of Christine McHugh, but it’s already started by the time I’m free. I’ve already warned them that I might not show. Still the newspapers to read - and laundry.

Sunday 3 November

Rain and storm. I get drenched to and from St John’s College Chapel, and start to deliver my Focus round on Castle Hill. This time it’s a (rather damp) newspaper, and the delivery takes much longer than usual. We have to expect more newspapers now Cambridge has become our third target seat, with Colchester and North Norfolk.

The drive to Heathrow takes twice as long as normal. Planes cancelled in all directions, and Terminal 1 resembles nothing so much as Kinshasa airport. Landing in Brussels, two hours late, we go down with a bang. Everyone holds on.

The BBC World Service phones my flat late at night to do an interview on the results of the Turkish elections. Great excitement as four of the old parties fail to get back in. The new government will try to be both Islamist and democratic. How will this work? I make encouraging noises.

Monday 4 November

The Turkish ambassador to the EU, Ozgun Demiralp, calls to see me at 09.30. He looks tired, but is phlegmatic. Very Ottoman. We plan a visit to Ankara in three weeks time, once the new AKP government is in place.

Write an article for Parliament magazine criticising Peter Hain, UK government representative in the Convention, for his knack of saying one thing in Brussels and another back at Westminster. Hain has been particularly difficult over the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for which I have a special responsibility. Guillaume McLaughlin, my parliamentary assistant, complains I am being too harsh on Hain. I think the Foreign Office have got at him. Bernardo Costa Pereira, Guillaume’s assistant, is suitably diplomatic.

At 15.00 a meeting of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, where I lead the ELDR team. Lively discussion on progress in the Convention. MEPs not on the Convention are purist and rather critical. We conventionnels know we have to be flexible to avoid marginalisation. Another item concerns a proposal to set up an EU public prosecutor to defend the financial interests of the Union against fraud and embezzlement. I support the proposal but argue for more rigour.

At 20.00 I take off with Cecilia Malmström, my counterpart on the Foreign Affairs Committee, to the Grande Place du Sablon to eat two large Ostende soles each. We share our grumbles about politics, MM. Blair and Persson in particular, and life in general. We totter off home.

Tuesday 5 November

A bus and tram strike in Brussels. I walk to work, uphill. Back to the Constitutional Committee, where the item of business is a 28 page draft report of the ‘hierarchy of norms’ – the EU’s complicated structure of legislative and executive acts. Rapporteur Jean-Louis Bourlanges, an adroit and passionate French centrist, has not yet achieved the goal of simplification.

Then to the Foreign Affairs Committee to debate and vote on a big portmanteau report on the state of the enlargement negotiations. I have tabled amendments to encourage the candidacy of Turkey. Most MEPs are against, but we manage to end up with a decent compromise which should not demoralise pro-Europe Turks. The next step comes at the Copenhagen summit in December.

At 15.00 my office fills up with a delegation from the European Landowners’ Organisation, whose British member is the Country Landowners’ Association. Their spokesman, Thierry de l’Escaille, warns of their worries about the constitutionalisation of the European Union, and their legitimate if exaggerated fears for the rights of property owners. Shades of 1789, but De l’Escaille protects me from some fairly aggressive cross-questioning Brits.

David Byrne, the Irish Commissioner, has asked to see me at 18.00. Guillaume and I arrive promptly and are given one of the few good cups of tea there is to be had this side of Dover. Byrne wants to talk about the Convention, the Irish decision on Nice, the Charter, and his own portfolio of public health and consumer affairs. He prefaces the conversation by praising my published books, which, with the cuppa, gets the meeting off to a good start.

Wednesday 6 November

The British Liberal Democrat European Parliamentary Party meets at 08.30. I am there. We discuss the agenda of the plenary session of the Parliament which takes place that afternoon and tomorrow. We continue a debate about the directive on the rights of temporary workers, which divides LDEPP between left and right. I am on the side of the workers, against that of the UK government. Other colleagues resent what they see as unnecessary intrusion by the EU into domestic life. I wonder who will look after temps if we don’t.

We also have time to grumble about the party’s selection procedures for Euro-MPs, which unites everyone.

The meeting of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform group follows. I apply for speaking time on Turkey but sacrifice it for Emma Nicholson on Romania. I name my price. Henning Christophersen, the former European Commissioner now representing the Danish government on the Convention, gives his reflections on our work so far. He is thorough and goes into lots of detail, which dulls the spirit of potential critics. I come in at the end of the debate to support him.

Lib Dem News editor Deirdre Razzall pops up in my office. She is following the week’s proceedings, and it is a delight to see her. But over lunch she seems more interested in Guillaume’s nomination as top campaigner of the year by the Brussels weekly European Voice.

At 15.00 I speak to a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Swiss Parliament. There are lots of Liberals there, but not too many supporters of an early application to join the EU. They receive politely my aperçus on federalism.

The ELDR group has a quick meeting with the Liberal prime minister of Denmark, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, before he speaks to the plenary session about the results of the recent European Council on enlargement. Anders Fogh is clearly thriving as prime minister. He is the first Danish leader for years to be strong, able and ambitious, all at once.

I take my seat in the chamber for the first hour and a half of the debate. Prodi, who follows Rasmussen, is good. Both stress the moral as well as the economic and political side of enlargement.

A delegation from the Lib Dem European Group (LDEG) is visiting the Parliament. I meet it for 45 minutes and talk about the Convention and the Charter. They seem interested and well informed. Later I join the LDEG team, including Stephen and Angela Robinson from Chelmsford, for a beer in the Members’ Bar. Plans to join them later for dinner are frustrated by a preparatory staff meeting for tomorrow’s Convention. I also meet with Chris Huhne, MEP for South East England and ELDR economics spokesman, about the Stability Pact.

Thursday 7 November

A big day for the Convention. I chair the Liberal caucus at 09.30 and we prepare for the plenary debates, today and tomorrow. We Liberals are about 30 strong in the Convention, including observers, and we use the caucus meetings for frank discussion of the thorny issues. At 11.00 I go to the week’s voting session in the hemicycle. The main item is a long and controversial resolution on reform of the CAP. We fail to amend it sufficiently in a pro-reform direction and we end up opposing the whole thing, unlike the British Tories.

A scheduled lunch with the Portuguese government representative on the Convention was postponed at the last moment because he was kept in a cabal of the smaller member states. We re-arrange the date.

The Convention proper begins at 15.00 with a short homily from our President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. I am called to speak early on the economic governance of the Union. I support the tighter coordination of macro-economic policy but warn against drastic changes to the existing settlement on Economic and Monetary Union so early on in the life of the euro. However, the Union should speak with a single voice in world monetary affairs, especially in the IMF where the EU makes the largest single contribution. This outburst earns me a story in the next morning’s Wall Street Journal. Speaking early means I can spend the rest of the afternoon working the hall. The session ends at 20.00, and the Liberals go to dinner together in a private dining room. We argue away in a cheerful fashion about the presidency of the Union and the idea for a Congress until late.

Friday 8 November

At 08.00 a small breakfast in the Commission with President Prodi. He shares his misgivings about some of the emerging positions in the Convention, notably on the presidency and the Congress. Romano Prodi is a charming and engaged man who deserves a much better press than he gets, especially from the Anglo-Saxons. I am not sure I have helped him much.

Back to the Convention where a quarrel breaks out between the intergovernmentalists (them) and the integrationists (us). The issue is what powers should be exercised at which level, and how. I stress that the Union needs strong law-making powers even in those areas where most of the competence still lies with member states. I use the example of food safety and public health (thanks to Byrne) and link the debate to security issues. The Convention’s Praesidium is asked to reflect on the results of the debate. A late flurry of excitement as Giscard’s hostility to Turkish EU membership hits Le Monde.

In the afternoon the Convention breaks down into working groups. Mine is on ‘simplification’, which is more complicated than it sounds. Bob Maclennan, who is an alternate member of the Convention from the House of Lords, also sits on the working group and we collaborate closely. Our chairman is Guiliano Amato, the former Italian prime minister, a man of great guile and wit. Today we dissect the famous ‘codecision procedure’ whereby the Council and the Parliament conciliate their opinions on draft laws. After four hours we have exhausted both the subject and ourselves, and I head off for the airport.

Bad weather has closed all but one runway at Heathrow, and my flight is delayed by 90 minutes. I straggle back to Cambridge at midnight.