The chances of Britain successfully renegotiating its membership of the European Union have increased after David Cameron’s general election victory, according to a former European commission chief.
In the most upbeat assessment of the prime minister’s planned EU renegotiation plan, José Manuel Barroso said Cameron had a greater chance of success after enhancing his authority in the election. This would help pave the way for a yes vote in the 2017 referendum, which will ask Britons if the UK should be a member of the EU.
Barroso told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “I think today there are better conditions for the referendum to succeed – I mean for a yes – because the prime minister now has renewed fresh legitimacy. Now he has internally greater authority to make the case for Europe.”
The Anglophile former president of the commission spoke out after
Cameron said he had started to outline his reform plans in a series of telephone calls with EU leaders. Downing Street is making clear that legislation to deliver the prime minister’s planned EU referendum by the end of 2017 will be one of the main items in the Queen’s speech on 27 May.
Cameron intends to outline his plans to improve Britain’s EU membership terms at a summit of the union’s leaders next month. He will demand reforms to tighten the rules on access to out-of-work and in-work benefits for EU citizens.
Downing Street expects all ministers to back the prime minister’s renegotiation plans and to endorse the outcome. This would mean that staunch Eurosceptics, such as Iain Duncan Smith, would be expected to campaign for a yes vote.
But Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of Tory MPs, said ministers should be allowed to campaign on either side of the referendum. He told the Westminster Hour on BBC Radio 4: “The more you ... allow a little bit of freedom to express things, the less it appears to be a great rancorous split and the more it is just a civilised, intelligent debate amongst people who all have the best interests of the country at heart.”
European leaders have been highly critical of Cameron’s demand for Britain to be given favourable treatment. But Jean-Claude Juncker, the current commission president, congratulated the Conservative leader on his election victory and said he was keen to work with him in a constructive manner.
Barroso’s comments showed how the thinking has moved in Brussels after the Tories exceeded expectations to win an overall majority. “The anti-European party, Ukip, was reduced to a very small expression – almost irrelevant. Its leader has resigned. So today, Cameron has internally much greater authority.
“From my experience, knowing him, he is someone determined and someone pragmatic. Other leaders of the EU, all of them I know well, are willing to accommodate some concerns and points made by Britain provided they are compatible with the overall project of European integration.”
Before the election, EU leaders had cast doubt over Cameron’s plans because they assumed that a Labour victory would kill off the 2017 referendum, or a continued Liberal Democrat presence in government would moderate the Tory plans.
Barroso said fundamental principles of the EU, such as the free movement of citizens, cannot be abandoned. But he said other EU leaders shared his view about the need to change the rules around benefits.
