Cameron walks thin line in UK's EU renegotiations

Prime Minister David Cameron laid out his government’s terms for remaining in the European Union (EU) on Tuesday, as he seeks to renegotiate Britain’s membership ahead of a referendum to be held before the end of 2017. With conflicting pressures from European officials, eurosceptics in his Conservative Party and the British public, Cameron is sending out mixed messages.

British Prime Minister David Cameron in a speech on the reform of the EU, 10 November 2015. Reuters/Kirsty Wigglesworth/pool

Reaching a legally binding and irreversible renegotiation of Britain’s membership by an EU leader summit scheduled for 17 December will be a challenge, Cameron said.

“I do not deny that seeking changes which require the agreement of 27 other democracies, all with their own concerns, is a big task,” Cameron said at a press conference, underlining the importance of the negotiations for the outcome of the referendum.

“This is perhaps the most important decision that the British people will have to take at the ballot box in our lifetimes,” Cameron said. “So I want to set out for the British people why this referendum matters and some of the issues we should weigh up very carefully as the arguments ebb and flow as we approach the referendum.”

Cameron sent a letter to European Council president Donald Tusk setting out four main objectives for renegotiations:

• protecting members not using the euro;
• boosting competitiveness by making it the basis all EU activities;
• allowing Britain to opt out of European integration measures;
• tackling freedom of movement abuses.

The European Commission said the demands were “highly problematic” and German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed a mix of openness and reservation.

“There’s a huge amount of common ground when it comes to competitiveness, free trade and reducing red tape,” says Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, who says talks with member states will be more difficult when it comes to the single European market.

“There is a widespread willingness to come up with some sort of deal where the eurozone gets to use the institutions of the European Union to integrate further, in exchange for some principles to protect the single market,” Leonard says. “The exact way that gets translated into practice will be kind of tricky.”

But a concrete proposal to restrict other EU nationals’ access to British benefits marks the toughest sell for other member states.

“When it comes to in-work benefits such as housing benefits and tax credits, he’s going to find it very difficult to get a reform that would allow them to ban people from taking them for up to four years,” says John Springford, senior research fellow with the London-based Centre for European Reform. “[Other EU nationals employed in Britain] are workers, and the EU treaties make it clear there can be no discrimination between workers from other countries and host nationals.”

Such a proposal reveals the conflicting pressures on Cameron as he seeks to negotiate with member states and maintain the support of eurosceptic members of his own party.

“He’s trying to move from a position where he was elected as a eurosceptic leader of a eurosceptic party, to one where he campaigns as prime minister to keep Britain in the European Union,” says Leonard.

“If he overreaches and makes his demands very big and frightening for other member states, they are going to blow him out of the water, which might make things difficult for him domestically,” Springford says. “Whereas if he soft-pedals too much and says things other member states might like, then eurosceptics at home in his own party say he’s not trying hard enough.

“At some point, if he’s going to campaign to stay in the EU, he’s going have to confront his own eurosceptics. He’s trying to delay that day of reckoning as long as possible, but that day is fast approaching.”