Cameron to meet Juncker at Chequers in EU renegotiation 'charm offensive'
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Version 0 of 1. David Cameron will launch a push to win support for changes to the EU next week by entertaining the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, at Chequers before meetings with François Hollande and Angela Merkel. The UK prime minister began his campaign for EU renegotiation at a summit in Latvia on Friday, but there will be a significant intensification of his efforts when he meets the key players in Europe next week. Related: David Cameron plays down hopes of quick EU deal Cameron will hold talks with Juncker on Monday before travelling to Paris to see Hollande, the French president, and Berlin for a meeting with Merkel, the German chancellor, later in the week. Inviting Juncker to his country residence could mark a turning point in their relations after Cameron fought hard to stop the former Luxembourg prime minister from getting the top Brussels job. A British official confirmed on Friday that the meeting would include talks on how to carry out the renegotiation and how to address UK concerns. Speaking from Riga before his first summit with EU leaders since his general election victory, Cameron played down expectations of a quick deal and suggested other countries and commentators would initially create “noise” to undermine his aims. However, he emphasised his determination to get a new deal for Britain and explain to leaders that the UK referendum on EU membership would definitely take place before the end of 2017. There have been reports that Cameron was hoping to secure a deal a year early and hold a referendum in 2016, but this was his first face-to-face opportunity to test the appetite for change among a wide variety of EU leaders since he won the election outright. As he entered the talks, Cameron said: “It is an opportunity to start some of the discussions about the reform of the European Union. There will be ups and downs – you’ll hear one day this is possible, the next day something else is impossible. “But one thing throughout all of this will be constant and that is my determination to deliver for the British people a reform of the European Union so they get a proper choice in that referendum we hold: an in/out referendum before the end of 2017. That will be constant. But there’ll be lots of noise, lots of ups and downs along the way.” The main focus of this week’s Eastern Partnership summit is talks between EU leaders and former Soviet countries including Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova. The turmoil in Ukraine and relations with Russia are likely to be at the top of the agenda. However, Cameron will also be seeking to lobby for EU reform on the fringes of the conference, mainly with leaders of smaller countries with whom he may not have spent much time. It is understood he intends his conversations to be fairly general, setting out his view of the mood towards the EU in the UK and some of the areas where he wants to see change. While Cameron had a “brush-by” meeting with the Polish prime minister and talks with leaders from Hungary and Sweden on Friday morning, other leaders expressed an element of frustration that Cameron was trying to push his own agenda at the summit. Martin Schulz, the European parliament president and German social democrat MEP, said: “I don’t expect a difficult debate with David Cameron today. Debates with David Cameron are always difficult, here or elsewhere.” The UK prime minister has already made clear that one of the “absolute requirements” is a change to allow member states to set their own limits on how long migrants should have to wait before being able to claim welfare benefits. The UK wants to impose a four-year wait. Despite requests from other countries for Cameron to be clearer about his demands, a Whitehall source said it was not yet decided whether he would show his hand by setting out all his requests at any point. Cameron is mainly seeking changes that would reduce immigration to Britain from other EU countries. On Thursday, the latest UK figures showed net migration rose to 318,000 last year. Related: Figures show immigration surge as Cameron unveils illegal working bill Other leaders, including Merkel, have indicated that the fundamental principle of free movement is non-negotiable. However, the UK is hoping there will be a way of making the changes to benefits while preserving this central tenet of the EU. Other British demands include an exclusion from the EU’s commitment to ever closer union and the ability of national parliaments to work together to block legislation. Cameron has sounded increasingly emboldened about achieving change in the EU since his re-election. A document leaked to the Times revealed that UK officials were suggesting the EU should stop defining itself as a single-currency area, given that countries such as Britain and Denmark have kept their own. A Whitehall source said this was not the main thing on the UK’s wishlist, but that the government was on the lookout for anything that could be interpreted as discrimination against non-eurozone countries. |