EU referendum: Cameron denies euro-ultimatum

EU referendum: Cameron has already won, says Die Welt

03 June

David Cameron "has already won in Europe" and will achieve the reforms he needs to win a Yes vote in the EU referendum, the German newspaper Die Welt claims.

Far from angering fellow Europeans, the paper's Alan Posener argues, the Prime Minister's call for an end to the principle of "ever closer union" – the mantra central to all EU treaties and scorned by eurosceptics – has struck a chord with many who believe Brussels has enough power.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In short, Cameron could achieve changes that will not only impress the British people, but be welcomed by other EU members, says Posener. "Cameron has actually already won. He will get a number of concessions, in the best case reforms that benefit the entire EU, in the worst case exemptions for Great Britain."

It's a big slap on the back for Cameron – albeit from a conservative newspaper – and it follows his reasonably positive meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin last week. As The Times reports, he "met resistance in Paris and Warsaw" but Merkel "gave ground for optimism".

Back in London, Boris Johnson has warned that Cameron must be prepared to walk away from the EU negotiations if he finds he cannot win the reforms easily as Posener predicts.

In his first Commons speech since returning to Parliament as Tory MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (while remaining Mayor of London), Johnson said Britain should not fear leaving Europe: we can forge a "glorious" future outside the EU if necessary.

"If you are going to go into a difficult international negotiation of this kind then you have got to be prepared to walk away if you don't get the result that you want," he said.

Johnson qualified his remarks by praising Cameron's pan-European "schmooze-athon" and saying he was sure the PM's efforts would be "crowned with success". But his warning words will be considered deeply unhelpful in Downing Street, says The Times. So why did he say it?

The Guardian believes Johnson is trying to quash speculation that in private he is strongly pro-European: he "knows that he will need to emphasise his eurosceptic credentials if he is to succeed Cameron as Tory leader".

He might even be prepared to take a leading role in the Tories' No campaign, says the Guardian. "The ranks of this group will swell if Cameron is seen to have secured a weak deal."

EU referendum: David Cameron finally finds support in Europe

01 June

David Cameron's campaign to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU has been given a much-needed boost by two senior European ministers.

Following the Prime Minister's whirlwind tour of Europe last week, French economy minister Emmanuel Macron has said Britain should be allowed to remain in the union as a less integrated member, The Times reports.

"We have to accept the idea that Europe will be made on a two-speed basis," said Macron, adding that countries outside the eurozone should inhabit a "simpler, clearer, more efficient" union.

Cameron found another ally in the president of the European Parliament and German Social Democrat Martin Schulz, who supported his push for an opt-out from the "ever closer union" declaration.

But he also made it clear that he was not willing to support the PM at any cost. "I will not allow myself to be blackmailed in order to satisfy the ideological interests of the right wing of the Tory party," said Schulz. "My red line is that we must not start plucking the EU apart."

Although both politicians were speaking personally, their comments suggest that high-level political figures in Europe's two most influential countries "are open to a deal which would formalise Britain's status as a kind of semi-detached member of the EU," says The Independent.

While the French government has taken a hard line to any proposed changes, the German leadership has hinted that it is willing to make compromises to keep Britain in the EU. Angela Merkel, "normally so risk averse, was uncharacteristically outspoken" at her meeting with Cameron on Friday, says the BBC's Katya Adler. "And generally in the EU, when Germany speaks, others follow."

EU referendum: why Cameron will never please the eurosceptics

29 May

Can David Cameron really achieve concessions substantial enough to satisfy the eurosceptics on his own backbenches, and across the country, before the in/out EU referendum?

The Guardian says today that it's impossible, and the noises coming from other European capitals in the past 24 hours suggest that his chances of European leaders being "flexible and imaginative", as he has urged them, are slim.

In Paris, Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, called the referendum "very risky" and "quite dangerous", the Daily Telegraph reports. Fabius said Britain had "joined a football club" and could not decide "in the middle of the match that they want to play rugby".

In Berlin, ahead of Cameron's lunchtime meeting today with Angela Merkel, a senior German businessman told the BBC that his colleagues were "astonished" that the UK was holding a referendum.

Volker Treir, deputy chief executive of Germany's chamber of commerce and industry, was asked how far Merkel should go in accommodating Britain's requests. "Our recommendation is not to deal under such circumstances," he replied.

To make matters trickier still, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has not only warned that Britain will vote to leave the EU unless we are granted major reforms, but that the British government will demand treaty change to achieve those reforms.

Most serious commentators have said in recent weeks that treaty change is not an option: it takes time because it has to be ratified by every one of the 28 member states – raising the possibility of a slew of referenda across Europe – and anyway European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker has said treaty change is not on the cards.

Rafal Trzaskowski, Poland's minister for European affairs, speaking ahead of Cameron's breakfast meeting today with the Polish PM, said treaty change was a "red line" for Poland, as was the introduction of any "discriminatory measures" that would mean Poles being treated any differently to Britons in the UK.

Trzaskowski added: "If every country comes with a shopping list to change European Union policies, that will be the end of the European construction, it will simply implode."

Hammond has also apparently ignored the advice – that comes down from Merkel herself – that negotiations in Europe can only advance through building consensus, not through issuing threats.

In what the Telegraph called "a warning shot" ahead of Cameron's trip to Paris, Warsaw and Berlin, Hammond said: "We're confident that our counterparts in Europe understand that if these issues are not addressed, the British people will not give their endorsement to the proposition that Britain should remain part of the European Union."

Cameron will have to behave less aggressively than that. But the bigger question, put in a Guardian editorial, is whether anything he can achieve will pacify the Eurosceptics – to which the answer is clearly No.

"Euroscepticism is not a list of demands that, if met, would thereby lead to a happy state of satisfaction with a newly ordered continent," says the editorial. "It is an inchoate, mobile, ever shifting cloud of discontent with the way things are."

Which is why Cameron faces such a difficult task. "He has to dissipate a mood, to alter a consciousness, and to relieve a condition of permanent grievance among a significant proportion of the population which has actually very little to do with what happens in the union or with what policies it does or does not adopt."

Philip Hammond, says The Guardian, must know that there is absolutely no chance of treaty revision. Cameron must take "a larger and less combative view". The best he can hope for is to create an illusion "that he is getting a lot of important concessions while for the most part not actually getting them".

This might enable him to achieve a Yes victory in the referendum and bury the issue for ten or 20 years. "It would not bury Euroscepticism, which will always be with us. But it would put it in the corner where it belongs."

EU referendum: Cameron sets off to woo European leaders

28 May

David Cameron has embarked on a tour of four European capitals in a bid to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU.

The Prime Minister will meet with leaders in The Hague, Paris, Warsaw and Berlin over the next two days to set forward his plans, which include limiting the number of European migrants entering the UK. Talks will begin today with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, followed by a meeting at the Elysée Palace in Paris with French President François Hollande. On Friday he will meet with Poland's Ewa Kopacz, before flying off to discuss his plans with German chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The government wants to ban new arrivals from claiming benefits for a period of four years in order to reduce immigration, a plan that is likely to be opposed by the Polish leader. Cameron is also pushing for an opt-out from the "ever closer union" declaration and wants national parliaments to have greater powers to block EU legislation. The tour comes after the government's key pledge to hold a referendum of Britain's membership in the EU before 2017 was revealed in detail in yesterday's Queen's Speech. Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond has "played down" speculation that the vote may be held earlier than expected, the BBC reports. "It's going to take some time. It's more important that we get it right than that we get it quickly," he said. Earlier this week, Cameron was warned of the challenges he faces in pushing for reform, after Hollande and Merkel agreed that eurozone reforms must be delivered under the EU's current treaties.

"The decision means that Cameron is unlikely to secure the "full-on" treaty change he demanded in January," says The Guardian. Sources suggest that the PM might instead push for a legally binding protocol which could be attached to a future revision of the Lisbon Treaty or to the next accession treaty for a new EU member state, the newspaper reports.

EU referendum: some voters 'don't know UK is in EU'

27 May

The likely wording of the question the British people will be asked in the EU referendum has emerged – and it confirms that while Europe might be at the centre of today's Queen's Speech, it is not the most important issue in everyone's lives.

According to the Financial Times, Britons will be asked whether the United Kingdom should remain a member of the European Union?

This differs subtly from the wording suggested by Tory backbencher James Wharton when he presented a private member's bill during the last parliament. Wharton proposed the question: "Do you think that the United Kingdom should be a member of the European Union?"

Why the difference? Because the Electoral Commission, which advises on these matters, has conducted tests and found that some people did not know whether the UK was already a member of the EU and this "presented a risk of misunderstanding".

If that illustrates the scale of the challenge facing the Yes and No campaigns once the starting gun is fired, then the size of David Cameron's task in trying to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership is highlighted by the latest manoeuvres by his fellow European leaders.

President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel, it emerged yesterday, are pushing to introduce a minimum corporation tax rate across Europe which would remove the "unfair" advantage of those member countries that offer much lower rates than others.

This would hurt Britain – which has a corporation tax of 20 per cent, the lowest in the G7 – but not as much as it would hurt Ireland with its hugely tempting 12.5 per cent rate (hence Apple, Google and Facebook headquartering their European operations there).

As the Daily Telegraph reports, "The beneficiaries would likely be France, with a 33 per cent basic rate and 36.6 per cent higher rate; Germany, with a rate of between 30-33 per cent; and Spain, with a rate of 30 per cent."

Downing Street's response was short and sweet. "We have a long-standing view on tax harmonisation, which is not to support it," said a spokesman.

The news from Warsaw also shows that Cameron has his work cut out if he's to win any real changes, whatever Tory MEP Daniel Hannan might say about how much our fellow Europeans want Britain to remain in the club.

Polish prime minister Ewa Kopacz, whom Cameron is due to visit on Friday as part of his European "charm offensive", warned that she would not accept any proposals that "discriminate" against her countrymen working in Britain.

Cameron, of course, wants to ban EU migrants from claiming benefits for four years, and stop from sending child benefit home to children living abroad.

But the Daily Mail reports that at a press conference yesterday, Kopacz said she would not accept changes that did not also apply to British citizens.

As Isabel Hardman comments at The Spectator, Cameron's "charm offensive" really needs to live up to its name. He will have to deal with EU leaders in the "European way" as Angela Merkel would put it, by which she means building alliances and not issuing threats.

It might not matter what sort of noises European leaders make in public after their meetings with Cameron, Hardman argues, but if they are left privately "annoyed by the tone Britain strikes, then Cameron will find the next year or two pretty heavy going".