European Council President Donald Tusk Tuesday sent EU leaders proposed new terms for Britain’s membership in the bloc, kicking off an intense two-week effort to get them to agree to the reforms.
The measures, spelled out in a detailed, 16-page text drawn up after months of negotiation, have been designed to make the EU more palatable to British voters before a referendum on whether to stay in the Union is held later this year. They include reforms in four major areas: competitiveness, eurozone governance, national sovereignty and welfare benefits for EU migrants.
Tusk and British Prime Minister David Cameron had been under pressure to present the reforms early this week so that EU diplomats can work out technical details before national leaders sit down at the summit on February 18 to finalize the agreement. That meeting is already set to be the scene for other difficult talks on issues affecting European solidarity, including the ongoing migration crisis.
“Keeping the unity of the European Union is the biggest challenge for all of us and so it is the key objective of my mandate,” Tusk said in a letter to EU leaders accompanying the proposal. “To my mind [the deal] goes really far in addressing all the concerns raised by Prime Minister Cameron. The line I did not cross, however, were the principles on which the European project is founded.”
Cameron said in a tweet soon after the draft EU renegotiation plan was sent that it “shows real progress in all four areas where U.K. needs change but there’s more work to do.”
PM: Draft EU renegotiation document shows real progress in all four areas where UK needs change but there’s more work to do. #EUreform
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) February 2, 2016
Speaking later in the day at a Siemens factory in Chippenham, England, Cameron said, “If I could get these terms for British membership I would opt in to the European Union.”
He added: “I will take as long as I need to get this deal,” indicating he would extend the negotiation beyond the summit later this month if necessary.
Some of the more delicate political points, especially on the migration issue, have been left for leaders to decide at that meeting. Cameron wants the deal done before March so that the referendum can be held in June.
The next two weeks are also crucial because some countries still are not convinced of the need for reforms, especially Cameron’s controversial demand for a temporary ban on in-work benefits for EU migrants in the U.K. — which some see as an infringement of the bloc’s basic guarantee of free movement of people and labor.
The proposed agreement has been designed to make the restriction a temporary “emergency brake” in order to satisfy those critics — though Euroskeptics in Britain have already said it will have no effect on what they see as too much immigration into the U.K. by citizens of other EU countries.
“The very limited set of demands from our government have been watered down by the EU in every area,” said Liam Fox, a British member of Parliament from Cameron’s Conservative party, in a statement for the the Leave.eu group. “None of these changes even come close to the fundamental changes promised to the public.”
Another Conservative politician, U.K. MEP Syed Kamall, was more positive about the proposed deal. “David Cameron has already made good progress in the four areas of reform that he set out and I am confident he will make more progress before the February summit,” Kamall said.
On the issue of sovereignty, the U.K. is touting a “red card” provision — which would allow national parliaments to block EU legislation under certain circumstances — as a victory. The blocking mechanism can be triggered for up to three months after legislation is proposed, if a threshold of national legislators is met.
“This will strengthen the power of Westminster to stop unnecessary EU laws and addresses concerns that the current ‘yellow card’ system has not proved strong enough,” said a Downing Street official. “It ensures that the European Commission cannot just ignore the will of national parliamentarians and delivers greater democratic control over what the EU does.”
Another proposal to give non-eurozone countries more of a say in eurozone economic policy has also proven difficult to agree, with France raising the most concerns about it. The proposed text includes a safety mechanism that would let non-eurozone countries request that issues affecting the eurozone be referred to a summit of all EU members for further debate, but they would not have the power to veto a final decision.
The migration issue remains the thorniest issue, one that must still be finalized. EU officials said Tusk, under pressure from Eastern European countries, left blank the number of years that the emergency brake ban on in-work benefits would apply.
The task now for Tusk, Cameron and other EU officials is to ensure that the terms of the deal are acceptable to 27 other EU leaders.
The draft agreement gives a country the right to “limit the access of Union workers newly entering its labor market to in-work benefits for a total period of up to four years from the commencement of employment” but says the measure “would have a limited duration and apply to EU workers newly entering its labor market during a period of [X] years, extendable for two successive periods of [Y] years and [Z] years.”
According to an EU source, the question has been “left deliberately open for the heads of state and government, it’s important that this mechanism be finite. It’s an exceptional response to an exceptional situation so the exceptional response should be limited in time.”
The document also does not directly address the U.K. demand to change the EU’s goal of an “ever closer Union.” Rather, the language says it “is recognized” that the U.K. does not support further EU political integration and, in brackets, promises that “the substance of this will be incorporated into the Treaties at the time of their next revision.”
The task now for Tusk, Cameron and other EU officials is to ensure that the terms of the deal are acceptable to 27 other EU leaders.
Cameron is off to Warsaw on Friday in an effort to build broader support for the reforms. The crucial one for Central Europeans, who have seen millions of their citizens decamp to the U.K. over the last decade, is ensuring that those workers aren’t discriminated against.
“The U.K.’s first three demands are acceptable,” Konrad Szymański, Poland’s Europe minister, told POLITICO. “The fourth one is the problem. We can’t accept discrimination but then how does Cameron offer something for people who are against migration? We understand British concerns. They have the right to shape their labor market. The issue is discrimination.”
Poland’s new nationalist government is going to try hard to accommodate Cameron. In a recent speech to parliament, Witold Waszczykowski, Poland’s foreign minister, warned that Britain’s exit from the EU could lead to the bloc’s collapse.
Poland’s shares the U.K.’s skepticism on turning the EU into an ambitious federal project, seeing it instead as a grouping of like-minded countries built around free trade. Warsaw also wants to build a tighter security relationship with London.
“It’s the only European country which shares Poland’s vision of European security,” said Waszczykowski.