Tusk's letter about the EU renegotiation - Summary and analysis
In November David Cameron set out his EU renegotiation demands in a letter (pdf) to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council (the body of EU leaders). He set out demands in four areas.
Tusk’s letter today gives the most detailed official statement we’ve had so far as to progress being made in all four areas.
In summary, Tusk implies that the EU has already agreed two, or two and a half, of Cameron’s demands. But on EU migrants’ access to benefits there are serious problems, Tusk admits.
Here are the key points.
- Tusk said that there were “substantial political differences” because EU leaders do not agree with David Cameron’s call for the UK to be allowed to stop EU migrants claiming benefits for four years. But there could be agreement on his call for the UK to be allowed to stop having to pay child benefit to EU migrants whose children live abroad, Tusk said. He wrote:
The fourth basket on social benefits and the free movement of persons is the most delicate and will require a substantive political debate at our December meeting. While we see good prospects for agreeing on ways to fight abuses and possibly on some reforms related to the export of child benefits, there is presently no consensus on the request that people coming to Britain from the EU must live there and contribute for four years before they qualify for in-work benefits or social housing. This is certainly an issue where we need to hear more from the British Prime Minister and an open debate among ourselves before proceeding further ...
We also have to overcome the substantial political differences that we still have on the issue of social benefits and free movement.
- He said progress was being made on the issue of protecting non-Eurozone countries. This is the issue that George Osborne considers more important than any other, and Tusk suggested EU leaders may agree to the UK government’s call for non-Eurozone countries to be able to exercise some kind of “emergency brake” if their interest are being threatened. He said:
On the relations between the euro ins and outs we could search for an agreement around a set of principles that will ensure the possibility for the euro area to develop further and be efficient while avoiding any kind of discrimination vis-à-vis Member States that are not yet, or, in some cases, will not be part of the euro. We are also looking into the possibility of a mechanism that will support these principles by allowing Member States that are not in the euro the opportunity to raise concerns, and have them heard, if they feel that these principles are not being followed, without this turning into a veto right.
- He suggested EU leaders agree with Cameron’s demands on competitiveness.
On competitiveness, there is a very strong determination to promote this objective and to fully use the potential of the internal market in all its components. Everybody agrees on the need to further work on better regulation and on lessening the burdens on business while maintaining high standards. The contribution of trade to growth is also very important in this respect, in particular trade agreements with fast growing parts of the world.
- He indicated that, in practice, there was agreement that Britain should not be bound by the call for “ever closer union” in the EU treaties. Cameron has recently been talking this up as his key demand, and Tusk’s letter suggests this is in the bag, even though he did not go into precisely how the treaties may be rewritten. He also hinted there was support for reform along the lines of giving national parliaments a “red card” over EU law - another Cameron demand. Tusk said.
There is wide agreement that the concept of “ever closer union among the peoples” allows for various paths of integration for different countries. Those that want to deepen integration can move ahead, while respecting the wish of those who do not want to deepen any further. There is also a largely shared view on the importance of the role of national parliaments within the Union as well as strong emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity.
- He urged all member states to show a “readiness for compromise”.
- He said he wanted a deal as quickly as possible because the current uncertainty was “destabilising”.
Uncertainty about the future of the UK in the European Union is a destabilizing factor. That is why we must find a way to answer the British concerns as quickly as possible.
- He said he wanted to prepare a “concrete proposal” for reform for EU leaders to be able to adopt in February.
- He said there was no agreement yet on “the exact legal form the final deal will take”. This is a reference to Cameron wanting an assurance that the deal will be legally binding, and that it will be written into EU law at a future EU treaty change.
- He said that, although the issues raised were “difficult”, there was “a strong will” in the EU to get a solution.
That’s all for this blog today.
I will be covering Liz Truss’s statement on the floods shortly on our floods live blog.
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Tusk says EU renegotiation talks making 'good progress' but that EU leaders opposing Cameron over benefits
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, has released the text of a letter he has sent to the council (ie, to all EU leaders) saying what progress has been made on the EU renegotiation demanded by David Cameron.
The full text is here.
In summary, he says that “good progress” has been made, but that other EU leaders do not support Cameron’s call for the UK to be allowed to stop giving benefits to EU migrants until they have been in the country for four years.
Here is the key quote.
All in all it is my assessment that so far we have made good progress. We need some more time to sort out the precise drafting on all of these issues, including the exact legal form the final deal will take. We also have to overcome the substantial political differences that we still have on the issue of social benefits and free movement. The December European Council should address all the political dilemmas related to this process. Based on a substantive political discussion we should be able to prepare a concrete proposal to be finally adopted in February.
I will post a more detailed summary shortly.
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Here’s a Guardian video of David Cameron paying tribute to the “you ain’t no Muslim bruv” guy.
Lunchtime summary
- Number 10 has suggested that there will be no final decision before the end of the year over whether to build a new runway at Heathrow or at Gatwick. (See 12.36pm.)
- Ministers plan to use an obscure procedural device to stop peers giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote in the EU referendum. Peers voted in favour of votes at 16 in the EU referendum, but MPs are expected to overturn that vote in the Commons tomorrow. MPs were expecting this to become subject to “ping pong” between the Commons and the Lords, with the bill going backwards and forwards being amended until one side backed down. But this morning it has emerged that ministers are claiming financial privilege in relation to the bill, meaning that they want to certify this as a financial issue, and hence one on which peers cannot overrule the Commons. A Labour source said that the party was seeking clarification on this, and that it seemed to be an example of the government interpreting “financial privilege” in an unusual broad way to avoid scrutiny of what it was doing. Another Labour source said it showed how ministers were “arrogantly ramming” their plans through parliament.
- David Cameron has said that the government will review flood defences in the light of the weekend’s floods to see whether they need to be strengthened. There are more details on our live blog. Cameron said:
We should sit down again with the Environment Agency and look at the flood schemes that have been built, look at the ones that are planned ... and ask what can we do, what’s in the plan for the future and how does that need to change.
- Cameron has paid tribute to the man who was filmed saying “you ain’t no Muslim bruv” to the person involved in the Leytonstone knife attack. Cameron said:
Let me also pay credit to the person - you can’t quite see who it is from the film - who made that brilliant statement about ‘you ain’t no Muslim’. Some of us have dedicated speeches and media appearances and soundbites and everything on this subject, but ‘You ain’t no Muslim bruv’ said it all much better than I ever could. Thank you, that will be applauded around the country.
David Cameron just said 'You ain't no Muslim, bruv' https://t.co/KrlqSe5KW5
— Owen Bennett (@owenjbennett) December 7, 2015
- Tristram Hunt, the former shadow education secretary, has said that Labour needs to be much more ambitious about tackling inequality, and to recognise that it is not just a matter of income poverty. In a speech titled Labour’s Moral Mission: Inequality and Social Mobility in Modern Britain, he said:
We need to move beyond that old ‘Croslandite’ model of tackling inequality. Not just to arrest inequality but to comprehensively reverse it.
Friends, I think there should be two components to our approach.
First, bigger and bolder redistribution; redefined and refocused upon the more pressing wealth and asset inequalities of the age.
Second, a more assertive social investment state, which challenges concentrations of market power and rewrites the economic rules of the games.
However, I also think we need to remember class ...
Robert Putnam’s Our Kids: the American Dream in Crisis has influenced me perhaps more than any other book I read during my tenure as Shadow Education Secretary.
Backed up by the latest evidence in child development it tells the story of the myriad ways that class advantage makes the difference in America.
Most shockingly of all he finds privilege to be an even stronger predictor of college graduation than high school attainment.
It is not so different here.
Here there are good schools and poor schools, great teachers and not so great teachers.
But it is simply staggering how much schools have to swim against the current when it comes to helping poorer children fulfil their potential.
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Number 10 lobby briefing - Summary
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Number 10 effectively confirmed that a final decision about where to build the new runway needed for the south of England will not be taken by the end of the year. Referring to today’s Times story about this (see 10.25am), which followed up James Forsyth’s column in the Sun on Saturday, the prime minister’s spokesman said:
We will set out the direction on plans by the end of the year.
The spokeswoman said that Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, said earlier this year that the statement coming before the end of the year would cover the “direction” of plans. So the position was “absolutely the same” as it was, she said. She urged reporters not to get lost in “semantics”. But on this occasion the stress on semantics seemed justified because what Downing Street is saying now is rather different from what it was saying when the Davies Commission report was published in the summer saying the new runway should be built at Heathrow, not Gatwick. In July David Cameron was categoric. He said:
The guarantee I can give you is a decision will be made by the end of the year.
- The spokeswoman said the government was reviewing its flooding forecasts in the light of concerns that the current ones underestimate the risks. (See 11.54am.)
- The spokeswoman rejected Boris Johnson’s claim that the government had exaggerated the number of moderate opposition fighters in Syria. (See 8.57am.) She said:
This was a figure that we reached based on very detailed analysis by diplomats, intelligence experts and others. We are clear that it does not include extremist groups.
Asked if Cameron agreed with Johnson about the need to do a deal with Russia, she said the international community was engaging more closely with Russia over Syria “despite our very different views on certain aspects of the way forward”.
- The spokeswoman said that the government was making “good progress” with its EU renegotiation. But the “scale of the changes” being sought and “the significant, far-reaching nature of them” meant that “it is going to take time getting reform”, she said. This afternoon Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, will publish a letter responding to the one Cameron wrote to him setting out his EU demands.
- George Osborne will be taking PMQs this week because Cameron is away, the spokeswoman said.
Lord Janner has been found formally unfit to stand trial for a string of sexual offences, my colleague Rajeev Syal reports.
Government to review flooding forecasts amid concerns current ones underestimate the risks
Official forecasts may underestimate the risks of flooding, Downing Street suggested this morning. The prime minister’s spokeswoman told journalists that David Cameron raised the issue at this morning’s meeting of the Cobra emergency committee and asked whether there needs to be “adjustments” in relation to flood planning in the light of events over the weekend. She said:
There was an agreement that the government should look again at the level of rainfall we have seen in the floods, and how that tallies with the flood defences.
As an example, she said that in 2005 in Carlisle the flooding peaked at a level 0.5 metres above the previous record, which dated back to 1853. But this weekend flooding in the town peaked at a level around 0.5 metres above the height reached in 2005, she said.
This morning’s Cobra meeting lasted for around an hour and it also included a discussion of what need to be done today, to help people get into their homes and to address transport and power problems, and what needed to be done in the future to get communities “back on their feet”, the spokeswoman said.
Those contributing included officials from the Met Office, who briefed ministers on further flood warnings, and chief constables from the affected areas.
Liz Truss, the environment secretary, will say more in a statement to the Commons at 3.30pm.
I will post more from the lobby briefing soon.
Updated
Tristram Hunt, the former shadow education secretary, is giving a speech about class and inequality this morning. He has previewed his argument in an article for the Mirror. Here’s an extract.
For decades Labour has tried to overcome this injustice [inequality] by dealing with financial poverty; and clearly money matters – a lot.
But social justice is about more than just pounds and pence. It is also about parenting, family breakdown, better homes, stronger communities, social networks, access to culture, health and wellbeing, tackling crime and abuse.
Talking about class would capture this wider story. It would make us think much harder about how privilege sustains itself.
And it can connect in a way that dull statistics never will.
Yet Labour has been too scared to talk about class in recent years. And that must change.
Hunt is speaking now. Here are some tweets from the event.
Tristram Hunt: New Labour didn't talk about inequality, which Miliband called out. But he presumed everyone just agreed about it #fabians
— Conor Pope (@Conorpope) December 7, 2015
Tristram Hunt: Justin Trudeau in Canada shows an electoral message grounded in tackling inequality can be successful #fabians
— Conor Pope (@Conorpope) December 7, 2015
Tristram Hunt: But we learned from Ed Miliband that moral outrage will not prove successful #fabians
— Conor Pope (@Conorpope) December 7, 2015
I will post more from the speech later. Now I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing, and I will post again after 11.30am.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of its top 10 politics must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of all today’s politics stories.
And here are two stories I found particularly interesting.
A final decision on Heathrow is to be put off until later next year, as David Cameron blames the delay on doubts that a third runway could meet air quality standards.
A committee of ministers formed to help make the decision is expected to meet on Thursday. That would leave no time this week for the full cabinet discussion which Mr Cameron has promised opponents of a third runway at Britain’s largest airport ...
The prime minister is minded to use uncertainty over testing models to justify the pause, say senior ministers involved. Heathrow could be asked to work on a revised public transport improvement plan to reduce to a minimum the additional traffic created by a third runway. Gatwick would be told to continue working on its bid so that as little time as possible is lost if, after the additional review, ministers decide against Heathrow.
Mr Cameron issued a “no ifs no buts no third-runway” pledge before the election but the main political calculation is on the Tories’ chances of retaining the London mayoralty, according to senior figures. “It’s about Zac and Boris more than his pledge,” said one, a reference to Boris Johnson and the man bidding to succeed him, Zac Goldsmith, both of whom have pledged to fight any decision to expand Heathrow.
David Cameron has been secretly drawing up a plan to bypass an increasingly hostile anti-Tory majority in the House of Lords, which is threatening to wreak havoc with his legislative plans.
The UK prime minister will use the recent bust-up with the Lords on tax-credit reform as a chance to neuter the powers of the upper house.
Lord Strathclyde, the Tory grandee charged by Mr Cameron with reviewing the role of peers, is set to propose this month that the Lords should lose its veto over delegated or “secondary” legislation, such as the measure implementing tax-credit cuts.
Once that veto is removed, Mr Cameron is expected to step up his government’s increasing use of delegated legislation — also known as statutory instruments — to ram contentious measures through the upper house.
“We are being told to use statutory instruments wherever possible to get legislation through,” said one Conservative aide. Statutory instruments receive less parliamentary time and scrutiny than full bills.
ConservativeHome has published the results of its regularly monthly survey of Tory members about who the next leader should be. George Osborne, the chancellor, remains at the top, although as Paul Goodman points out, the autumn statement has not taken his lead over his rivals back towards the level it was in September.
Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, is at the Paris climate change talks and is chairing one of the groups working towards a deal. As the Press Association reports, she says she is “hopeful” there will be an agreement.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd has warned that all countries will need to make compromises as the high level part of crucial United Nations climate talks get under way.
Ministers from around the world are starting work on securing a new global climate deal at the talks in Paris after negotiators agreed a draft of the agreement, which aims to curb temperature rises and avoid dangerous climate change, over the weekend.
Rudd has been given the role of chairing a group with Gambia’s environment minister Pa Ousman Jarju on increasing the action countries will take to curb emissions before 2020, when the Paris deal would kick in.
But the energy secretary and the UK Government have faced criticism domestically for curbing measures to cut emissions including subsidies for renewables and energy efficiency, and the UK is likely to miss its EU 2020 targets for renewable energy.
The mood at the talks appears reasonably positive, although progress is slow and major sticking points remain on key issues such as the long-term goal for emissions reductions to avoid dangerous climate change and finance for poor countries to help them cope with global warming.
Rudd said: “I am hopeful that we can get a deal, but I am not complacent. As one of eight ministers from around the world asked by the COP 21 Presidency to help facilitate the deal, I am clear that there is a huge amount of work to get through. Compromises and some hard decisions will need to be made, by all of us.”
The French have set a tough timetable, wanting a final draft of the deal by Thursday - but experience from previous negotiations suggests the talks will overrun their official finish on Friday.
There will be a Commons statement on the floods later.
There will be a Govt statement in Commons on floods later today
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) December 7, 2015
David Cameron is to visit the areas hit by flooding, he announced after chairing the Cobra emergency committee meeting this morning.
Boris Johnson, the Conservative MP, mayor of London and potential future party leader, did not speak in the debate on extending air strikes against Islamic State (Isis) to Syria last week, but this morning he has pronounced in his column in the Daily Telegraph. He often uses the column to set out an alternative to the Number 10 line and today is no different. Two arguments stand out.
- Johnson said the West should form an alliance with Russia to defeat Isis.
When the House of Commons finally gave the go-ahead for air strikes last week, no one cheered; no one even hear-heared. No one is approaching this with the slightest sense of jingo or enthusiasm. We want to get on with whatever is the best and fastest way to bring peace to Syria. And since we all know that cannot be achieved by bombing alone, we need to think much more creatively about the coalition we could build.
That brings us to Vladimir Putin. I was in Paris at the end of last week, and the Russian leader’s face glowered sulkily from every billboard. “Poutin”, said the headline, “Notre nouvel ami”. Many French people think the time has come to do a deal with their new friends the Russians – and I think that they are broadly right ...
With Russian air support, the Assad regime is only a few miles from Palmyra – the fabled pink-stoned city of monuments, where Isil decapitated the 82-year-old curator, Khaled Al‑Assad, before beginning an orgy of cultural destruction.
Am I backing the Assad regime, and the Russians, in their joint enterprise to recapture that amazing site? You bet I am. That does not mean I trust Putin, and it does not mean that I want to keep Assad in power indefinitely. But we cannot suck and blow at once ...
This is the time to set aside our Cold War mindset. It is just not true that whatever is good for Putin must automatically be bad for the West. We both have a clear and concrete objective – to remove the threat from Isil. Everything else is secondary.
- Johnson questioned the claim from the government about there being 70,000 moderate opposition fighters in Syria.
We have the estimated 70,000 of the Free Syrian Army (and many other groups and grouplets); but those numbers may be exaggerated, and they may include some jihadists who are not ideologically very different from al-Qaeda.
We’ve written more on this story here.
This morning David Cameron has been chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee to discuss the floods, but my colleague Matthew Weaver is covering that story on a separate floods blog.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.
1pm: The vice chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, gives a speech at RUSI.
2.30pm: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.
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