David Cameron is yet to discuss his proposals for EU treaty renegotiations with seven national leaders, including his Greek counterpart, but Downing Street still hopes officials will have wrapped up technical discussions about a deal within several months.
The prime minister has spoken to 20 EU leaders about his hopes in broad terms, but not those of Greece, Austria, Portugal, Bulgaria, Croatia, Lithuania or Malta. He is planning to have more bilateral meetings with some of these leaders before a crucial European council gathering on Thursday and Friday.
Cameron will also have discussions with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor and most important leader in the debate, when he visits Berlin for a state dinner with the Queen on Wednesday night.
The conversations with the remaining leaders could prove tough. The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, is likely to be preoccupied with his country’s financial crisis, while the Austrian chancellor, Werner Faymann, was quoted by the German magazine Der Spiegel in May as suggesting that Cameron was not acting responsibly on the EU by planning an in/out referendum for the UK.
Although the European council is expected be dominated by the financial problems of Greece and the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, Downing Street said Cameron’s effortsto change the EU would also be on the agenda at some point.
The prime minister’s official spokeswoman said he wanted technical discussions at official levels to begin soon after the June summit and be concluded within several months - suggesting those meetings would be wrapped up the next big European council gathering in December.
“On renegotiation, we would like to maintain momentum on the discussions we’ve had so far and pave the way for technical talks following the European council. One would expect them to take several months … The Germans have already indicated they are open to having official-level discussions,” she said.
One area to be discussed at the council is the format of these formal talks, including how British officials conduct them with their counterparts from other countries, the European council and whether the European commission is also involved.
Cameron has promised to hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU by the end of 2017, but indicated he would be open to bringing the vote forward. The most likely date is currently thought to be autumn 2016, after he ruled out holding it on the same day as other elections in May next year.
The prime minister is under mounting pressure in the UK from his Eurosceptic backbenchers to provide more detail on his shopping list of demands, with Liam Fox, a former defence secretary, and Steve Baker, the co-chair of the Conservatives for Britain group, saying he should present his plans by the Tory party conference in the autumn.
Downing Street says it has already provided the four key areas where Cameron is seeking change. In general terms, he is looking at are: a four-year ban on EU migrants claiming in-work benefits; providing greater protections for non-eurozone countries to ensure they cannot be outvoted in the single market by eurozone countries; giving Britain an optout from the EU’s commitment to create an “ever-closer union” of the peoples of Europe; and giving national parliaments the ability to club together to block EU legislation.
