European reaction to David Cameron’s EU renegotiation demands has suggested broad support for his calls to cut red tape and improve competitiveness, but the likelihood of fierce opposition to any attempt to restrict freedom of movement.
The European Union’s executive in Brussels said in an initial response to the prime minister’s demands, set out in a speech and a letter to the EU president, Donald Tusk, that new curbs on the benefit rights of EU citizens living and working in other member states in particular were likely to prove highly problematic.
“We see a number of elements that seem to be feasible, like finding ways to increase the role of national parliaments,” Margaritis Schinas, the European commission spokesman, said after Cameron laid out the changes he wanted to see if he was to campaign in favour of Britain’s continued membership of the EU.
But Schinas warned that other British objectives, such as “the relations between euro ins and outs”, were more difficult, while some were “highly problematic, as they touch upon the fundamental freedoms of the internal market. Direct discrimination between EU citizens clearly falls into this last category.”
Cameron’s six-page letter to Tusk outlined his demands for greater competitiveness across the union, a British opt-out from the EU’s longstanding commitment to “ever closer union”, and protections for non-eurozone members to ensure their consent would be required if countries that use the common currency wanted to draw up new rules for the single market.
But his most controversial demand was likely to be the right for Britain to “restore a sense of fairness to our immigration system” and reduce “the current very high level of population flows from within the EU into the UK” by restricting some benefits, such as in-work and child benefits, for EU migrants.
In Berlin, Angela Merkel said she had been in touch with Cameron and he was bringing “no surprises to the table”. The German chancellor said she was willing to work with him on Britain’s proposals and that “if one has the spirit that we can solve these problems, then I’m convinced it can be done” – although she too described some demands as “easier than others”.
The Czech prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, said any attempts to limit freedom of movement posed “a serious problem”, adding: “The right to work and live anywhere in the EU is absolutely essential to us due to our historical experience.” Freedom of movement is seen by the Czechs a key advantage of EU membership and “it is impossible to imagine” the country giving it up, Sobotka said.
The centre-right European People’s party (EPP), the largest group in the European parliament, said it was “ready to continue listening to and accommodating the needs of the British people” and “supported ... the need to increase competitiveness and cut burdens on businesses in the EU”. But it warned bluntly that “the main freedoms on which the EU has been built are non-negotiable”.
Tusk said he would start talks next week with other EU countries about the British demands. “With David Cameron’s letter, negotiations on UK in EU can now begin,” he tweeted. “Next week I will launch bilateral consultations with member states as well as [the European parliament] on topics to be addressed.”
Schinas told a press conference in Brussels that the European commission considered the letter “as the beginning, not the end of the negotiations. We stand ready to work for a fair deal with Britain that is also fair for all the other member states.”
The reaction in France, which has long led a push for more specific details on London’s points of negotiation, was mainly one of relief that – as Le Monde put it – after months of UK officials holding their own debate behind closed doors, the British authorities had “at last” realised that the “Brexit battle will also be played in the public opinion of countries ‘on the continent’”.
The paper said: “The poker game has begun. Worried about holding onto the maximum of cards in this game of uncertain outcome, Mr Cameron is putting the minimum on the table.”
By staying vague on the date of his promised in-out referendum, Cameron aims to “stay master of the game at home” but also to put pressure on France and Germany, both of which have elections in 2017, Le Monde added.
The far-right Front National was quick to praise Cameron’s speech and letter. Its leader, Marine Le Pen, told Bloomberg: “I am so happy to see David Cameron doing in the UK what I want to do for France. He’s using the months ahead of the referendum to get what he wants for his country, and we want that too – more sovereignty for France and more freedom.”
Handelsblatt, Germany’s leading business daily, called Cameron’s speech and letter a “formal starting signal for negotiations”, but added they contained “warning shots to all sides”. The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said the UK prime minister “was doing nothing more or less than calling into question Britain’s continuance in the European Union”.
Poland’s European affairs minister, Konrad Szymański, said in a newspaper interview before Cameron’s speech that while the new government in Warsaw did not want to see Britain leave the EU, it would – like many others – be “very likely” to oppose any attempt to reduce freedom of movement for EU citizens.
“Reduced freedom of movement would set a precedent that would weaken the union,” Szymański told Rzeczpospolita. “There is no room for negotiation on the right to work in another EU country.” An estimated 700,000 Poles live in Britain.
The Danish prime minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, tweeted that Cameron’s speech and letter formed a “good basis for concrete negotiations”, but that the process would be “difficult. I hope we will succeed because we need a strong UK in EU.”
