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British PM plans to embark on second round of bilateral meetings that will be critical in determining when UK referendum can go ahead
David Cameron is to stage another round of talks with European leaders this autumn that will be critical to determining whether he thinks he can go ahead with a referendum next year or should instead wait until 2017.
He said the negotiations would determine the date of the referendum, not the other way round. The chancellor, George Osborne, is also holding talks in Paris on Monday with his French counterparts.
Cameron said technical discussions were now well under way in Brussels to work on the legal parameters of a deal, and these were going well. The weekly analytical discussions are looking at the legal form to the changes the UK is seeking and whether they would require treaty change, primary legislation or something more modest.
Cameron has accepted that treaty change would not be possible by next year but he could still win a legally binding agreement in writing that treaty change would follow once other EU states had finished their own negotiations about revising governance in the euro area.
But Cameron wants a further round of talks with key European leaders such as the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the end of September to test out how quickly a deal can be struck. He will be able to make a preliminary judgment at an autumn European council meeting but the council’s December get-together is more likely to determine if the prime minister feels he needs to go short or long on the referendum date.
Cameron plans to see Merkel just before the Conservative conference starting on 4 October and the EU council of heads of state on October 15 to 16. The timing gives him a chance to reveal to a restive conference the state of the negotiations, and the issues on which he is still pressing.
He has already held one round of bilaterals with EU leaders to lay out his demands.
He said: “I am pleased that this process has got under way properly. What is happening now is technical discussions in Brussels between my officials and officials of the European council and the legal secretariat. Those technical discussions are proceeding quite well but there will be lots of difficulties, problems, roadblocks ahead to get the sort of deal that I think is necessary”.
He said the talks would go on through the summer. Sir Ivan Rogers, the British Ambassador to the EU, and Sir Tom Scholar, the prime minister’s chief European adviser, are the lead UK negotiators.
Those present at the talks include a rotating team of 12 UK officials from different Whitehall departments, as well senior figures in the council secretariat, and the cabinet of both the EU president, Donald Tusk, and the EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
France, often portrayed as the roadblock to a deal, insist it is trying to be helpful, and it has been suggested it is the eastern European states, notably Poland, that will be most hostile due to the British government’s plan to prevent EU citizens living in the UK from receiving tax credits for at least four years.
The talks cover four areas of national sovereignty: vetoes for national parliaments and ever greater union, the relationship between the ins and outs in the euro area, competitiveness and welfare changes to reduce free movement of labour.
Cameron said he was determined that regardless of the outcome of the referendum the country had to build stronger trade links across the wider world, and not rely on European markets.
He said: “The best answer for Britain is to stay within a reformed European Union but irrespective of the European debate it is right for Britain to be open and trading with the rest of the world.
“We are one of most open economies, we have got incredible advantages, like our time zone [and] three of the world’s top four universities. We have got very strong and stable political system. We have got a government that is very pro-business, we have got some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the advanced world and we have got one of the fastest-growing economies in the advanced world.
“So we have got a lot to offer so we should be doing this and be reaching out to the fast-growing world irrespective of the European debate.”
He insists the Conservatives have re-established Britain’s status on the world stage.
“There is a broader message: Britain is back, our economy is growing, our deficit is falling, we have kept our promises we made to the poorest in the world about our spending on aid. We have kept our promises to Nato and we will go on keeping our Nato promises of spending 2% of our GDP on defence so we are a country that keeps its promises and knows it has an important role in the world.”
He said the negotiations would determine the date of the referendum, not the other way round. The chancellor, George Osborne, is also holding talks in Paris on Monday with his French counterparts.
Cameron said technical discussions were now well under way in Brussels to work on the legal parameters of a deal, and these were going well. The weekly analytical discussions are looking at the legal form to the changes the UK is seeking and whether they would require treaty change, primary legislation or something more modest.
Cameron has accepted that treaty change would not be possible by next year but he could still win a legally binding agreement in writing that treaty change would follow once other EU states had finished their own negotiations about revising governance in the euro area.
But Cameron wants a further round of talks with key European leaders such as the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, at the end of September to test out how quickly a deal can be struck. He will be able to make a preliminary judgment at an autumn European council meeting but the council’s December get-together is more likely to determine if the prime minister feels he needs to go short or long on the referendum date.
Cameron plans to see Merkel just before the Conservative conference starting on 4 October and the EU council of heads of state on October 15 to 16. The timing gives him a chance to reveal to a restive conference the state of the negotiations, and the issues on which he is still pressing.
He has already held one round of bilaterals with EU leaders to lay out his demands.
He said: “I am pleased that this process has got under way properly. What is happening now is technical discussions in Brussels between my officials and officials of the European council and the legal secretariat. Those technical discussions are proceeding quite well but there will be lots of difficulties, problems, roadblocks ahead to get the sort of deal that I think is necessary”.
He said the talks would go on through the summer. Sir Ivan Rogers, the British Ambassador to the EU, and Sir Tom Scholar, the prime minister’s chief European adviser, are the lead UK negotiators.
Those present at the talks include a rotating team of 12 UK officials from different Whitehall departments, as well senior figures in the council secretariat, and the cabinet of both the EU president, Donald Tusk, and the EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.
France, often portrayed as the roadblock to a deal, insist it is trying to be helpful, and it has been suggested it is the eastern European states, notably Poland, that will be most hostile due to the British government’s plan to prevent EU citizens living in the UK from receiving tax credits for at least four years.
The talks cover four areas of national sovereignty: vetoes for national parliaments and ever greater union, the relationship between the ins and outs in the euro area, competitiveness and welfare changes to reduce free movement of labour.
Cameron said he was determined that regardless of the outcome of the referendum the country had to build stronger trade links across the wider world, and not rely on European markets.
He said: “The best answer for Britain is to stay within a reformed European Union but irrespective of the European debate it is right for Britain to be open and trading with the rest of the world.
“We are one of most open economies, we have got incredible advantages, like our time zone [and] three of the world’s top four universities. We have got very strong and stable political system. We have got a government that is very pro-business, we have got some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the advanced world and we have got one of the fastest-growing economies in the advanced world.
“So we have got a lot to offer so we should be doing this and be reaching out to the fast-growing world irrespective of the European debate.”
He insists the Conservatives have re-established Britain’s status on the world stage.
“There is a broader message: Britain is back, our economy is growing, our deficit is falling, we have kept our promises we made to the poorest in the world about our spending on aid. We have kept our promises to Nato and we will go on keeping our Nato promises of spending 2% of our GDP on defence so we are a country that keeps its promises and knows it has an important role in the world.”
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