David Cameron is to brief fellow EU leaders on Britain’s proposals for renegotiating its membership terms in the formal setting of the European council in Brussels later this month.
As the prime minister left the door open to an early EU referendum on the same day as other elections next year, British officials confirmed that a slot has been set aside on the summit agenda for Cameron to outline his plans.
A draft of the summit guidelines – the forerunner of the formal summit agenda – simply says that item four on the agenda is, underlined, “UK”. This will give the prime minister a speaking slot but allows him to keep his options open by steering clear of outlining highly detailed demands.
British officials said they welcomed the news that the prime minister had been awarded a formal speaking slot after the summit guidelines were published by the Financial Times. A British official said: “We welcome this. Obviously the prime minister has been talking to leaders one to one and this offers a further opportunity to raise with all 27 [EU leaders] the concerns of British people that we want to address.”
The agreement of Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, to grant the prime minister a speaking slot will come as little surprise. EU leaders agreed at a summit before the election to set aside time to consider the UK’s concerns.
It is understood that the prime minister will outline some of the areas he has identified in recent months. These 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 opt-out from the EU’s historic 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.
It is understood that officials and lawyers working for Tusk and for Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president who acts as the formal guardian of the EU treaties, will then examine the legal avenues for introducing the prime minister’s demands. Cameron, who has been told that his plans to restrict access to benefits would have to be underpinned by treaty change, has demanded what he calls “full-on” treaty change.
The prime minister, who told MPs on Wednesday that the negotiations would take place over the “coming months”, kept his options open on holding a referendum in May next year when he said he saw no difficulty in holding the poll on the same day as other elections, even though the Election commission prefers referendums to be held on separate dates from major elections. The most high profile elections next May are the Scottish parliamentary and London mayoral elections.
The prime minister told MPs: “My view is the timing of the referendum should be determined by the timing of the renegotiation. When the renegotiation is complete, we set a date for the referendum. I don’t myself think it should be determined by the timing of other elections.”
He said he had been satisfied with the referendum on whether Britain should adopt the alternative vote electoral system, which was held on the same day as other elections, telling MPs: “I think people are capable of making those two decisions.”
Harriet Harman, the interim Labour leader, said she strongly agreed with the Electoral Commission that referendum polling day should not coincide with other elections and urged the prime minister to agree a separate voting day.
Harman also tackled Cameron over his decision not to impose a period of purdah on the government, which would prevent the publication of official documents during the formal phase of the referendum campaign. The prime minister replied by making the case that the campaign could not obscure the ability of ministers to engage with EU summits, European court judgments or other issues emanating from Brussels.
He added: “The second issue I would raise – and I think this is a bigger issue – is when the negotiation is complete and the government has a clear view, I don’t want us to be neutral on this issue. I want us to speak clearly and frankly on this issue.
“When it came to the Scottish referendum, I actually felt in the last few weeks before the referendum the UK government was often being advised it couldn’t take a view on the future of the UK. I think that was a ridiculous situation, which is why we have put forward the change to the purdah rules.”
