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Blood,
sweat and fears: the fight for a British deal
By PAUL DALLISON
2/20/16, 12:26 AM CET Updated 2/20/16, 12:29 AM CET
For a man who once
warned his party to “stop banging on about Europe,” David Cameron
has been doing a lot of banging on about Europe.
The run-up to Friday
night’s deal on reforming the U.K’s relationship with the EU saw
silence, procrastination, a grand plan ridiculed by the right-wing
British press, the topic bumped off the schedule of summit after
summit, a whirlwind tour of European capitals and, finally, something
that Cameron says he can take back to the British people and sell
with all his “heart and soul.”
Just two shirts into
his planned “three-shirt” weekend, Cameron proclaimed victory,
saying the deal had “delivered on the commitments I made at the
beginning of this renegotiation process. Britain will be permanently
out of ever closer union, never part of a European superstate.”
Everyone else
proclaimed victory, too, in a finale predicted by Dalia Grybauskaitė,
Lithuania’s president, who said before the talks even began that
“everybody would have its own drama, and then we will agree.”
That’s just how it
played out. Cameron arrived at the summit on Thursday full of
patriotic talk of “battling for Britain.” At 5:30 a.m Friday he
trudged out of the Council’s unlovely headquarters without saying a
word. A spokesman filled in the gap: “It’s hard going.”
The late night —
European Council President Donald Tusk was there until 7 a.m — and
the need to spend the morning hours on Friday brokering agreements
between Britain and various other countries meant the second summit
day’s planned breakfast became brunch, then became lunch, then late
lunch, then afternoon tea, and finally dinner.
The official meal —
at which the final deal was agreed — was so long in coming that
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a quick trip to a nearby snack
stand for a cone of Belgium’s beloved frites, what the French call
fries and the Brits call chips.
Once again, the
migration crisis had derailed Cameron’s — and the caterers’ —
plans. Austria’s hard line took attention away from Cameron at a
six-hour dinner and debate. The Austrians want to cap the number of
migrants allowed in, the Commission’s migration chief said that was
illegal.
But after that
dispute was finally disposed of by EU leaders in the early hours of
Friday morning, the sticking points for Cameron remained. Getting
past them required a day of back-t0-back bilaterals — meetings
between Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
and various intransigent heads of state or government.
“It was a strange
Council in the way things have been handled,” said a French
diplomat who was present during the talks. “We had a text which was
very far from being final, so the heads of state had to be involved,
but it’s impossible for 28 to negotiate. There were a lot of
bilateral talks. The papers went around, but sometimes not at the
same time. It was very complicated.”
France and Belgium
were worried about Cameron’s desire to get Britain out of its
commitment to an “ever closer union.” France was also concerned
that British attempts to protect non-eurozone countries in the EU’s
single market could amount to special treatment for the City of
London. And, top of the list, the Central European Visegrád Group,
seemingly rejuvenated by the Brexit debate, was pushing back against
British calls to restrict benefits for EU migrants.
The frustrations
remained, too. Cameron — who had declared he was “very suspicious
of Brussels” — was consistently late: late in drawing up his
plans; late handing them over to Tusk; late turning up for meetings,
or not turning up for them at all.
Plus, there was the
nagging feeling that Cameron had turned a Conservative Party squabble
— perhaps the Conservative Party squabble — into an international
event. That was Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s view, shared by his
comrades in the Greek government.
Trouble from the
start
The road to
agreement was long. Back in January 2013, Cameron, under pressure
from the Tory right and terrified by a surge in support for the
United Kingdom Independence Party, committed himself to renegotiation
and referendum. In what became known as his “Bloomberg speech” he
invoked World War II — “the skies of London lit by flames night
after night” — before calling for a changed EU “to deliver
prosperity and to retain the support of its peoples.”
“Democratic
consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer thin,” he said. “It is
time for the British people to have their say. It is time to settle
this European question in British politics. I say to the British
people: This will be your decision.”
The pro-Europe
Liberal Democrats, the (very) junior government coalition partner,
were having none of it.
Almost a year to the
day after the Bloomberg speech, Cameron returned to the subject,
unveiling a plan for changing Europe. He said that, if re-elected in
2015 with a majority in parliament, he would hold an In/Out
referendum before the end of 2017.
No one, Cameron
included, thought that would happen. But it did and in May 2015
Cameron’s Tories won the general election outright, shedding
themselves of their bothersome Liberal Democrat coalition hangers-on.
Not only that, but UKIP, thanks to the U.K.’s first-past-the-post
electoral system, had just one MP to show for their three million
votes.
Cameron now had no
need to hold an EU referendum at all — UKIP was a busted flush, and
Cameron had announced he wouldn’t stay on for a third term as party
leader and prime minister. He had little to gain from a referendum
and an awful lot to lose: He didn’t want to be the prime minister
who took the U.K. out of the EU.
It was, however, too
late to turn back.
By the time of a
European Council in June 2015, the U.K.’s renegotiation efforts
were on the agenda (sort of). Under the heading “U.K.” in the
draft conclusions, the page was blank. It would stay that way for
some months, at least in part because of Europe’s struggles to cope
with the migration crisis, which got in the way not only at summits
but also at smaller gatherings of leaders.
The British issue
was pushed to the side again at a summit in September, with Cameron
and Tusk deciding that the state-of-play would become clearer at a
meeting of EU leaders a month later. It didn’t.
The referendum
discussion was reduced to a brief “introductory point” lasting a
few minutes during the October summit. The talk was sandwiched
between mention of the Economic and Monetary Union and the COP21
climate change conference, leaving more time for leaders to discuss
migration. It was decided that Cameron would not set out his reform
plans until another gathering of EU heads of state and government in
December.
By that stage, there
was mounting frustration at Cameron’s inaction. The leader of the
Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, told POLITICO that Cameron’s
approach to the referendum was “about as unstrategic as you can
get.”
In the absence of
any actual EU reform demands from Westminster, staff at the
Commission and Council had been reduced to testing hypothetical
scenarios of what the British might want. They were forced to rely on
speeches and the Conservative Party manifesto for guidance, according
to an official.
Wish list
They got their
answer on November 10, 2015. Cameron detailed his demands in a letter
to Tusk. They focused on four areas:
Protecting the
single market for Britain and other non-eurozone countries.
Boosting
competitiveness. Cameron said he wanted to “write competitiveness
into the DNA of the whole European Union” by cutting the burden on
business.
Allowing Britain to
opt out of the EU’s ambition to forge an “ever closer union”
and strengthening the role of national parliaments.
Restricting access
to benefits for EU migrants. He said he wanted to stop those coming
to the U.K. from claiming certain benefits until they had been a U.K.
resident for four years.
Criticism was quick
to follow. Brussels was disappointed at a lack of detail;
Euroskeptics bemoaned the lack of ambition. UKIP’s Nigel Farage,
inevitably, said the prime minister asked for “almost nothing” of
substance from Brussels.
At the end of
November, Tusk and Cameron took time out from an EU-Turkey migration
summit to gauge the progress the British prime minister had made in
trying to get fellow EU leaders onside with his demands, and to see
if the issue could make it on to the agenda for a December 17-18
meeting of EU leaders.
In a letter to
member countries, Tusk said Cameron could expect EU leaders’
response to his proposed changes by February, with “substantive
political debate” and more explanation from Cameron required at the
December 17-18 summit.
He said there was
“no consensus” on Cameron’s “most delicate” proposal: the
four-year ban on in-work benefits for EU migrants.
To fix that, Cameron
began to rack up the air miles, shuttling from EU capital to EU
capital to put his case for reform.
After a brief
respite when the government managed to block a Labour Party plan to
allow 16- and 17-year-olds to be able to vote in the referendum, it
was back to Brussels for a summit at which EU leaders broke little,
if any new ground on migration or the U.K.’s reform plans. The most
tangible decision they made was to adjourn their deliberations on
those issues until the New Year.
Crunch time
As 2015 turned into
2016, Cameron was back on his Reform Tour. In Budapest, Viktor Orbán
told the British PM that the 55,000 Hungarians working in the U.K.
were not “parasites” and paid “more contributions and taxes
than the benefits that they get.”
Back in London,
Cameron broke cover and gave his clearest indication yet that he
wanted the U.K. to stay in the EU, telling the BBC: “I don’t
think [an exit] is the right answer.” He also told the BBC’s
Andrew Marr that the result of the referendum was not linked to his
own political future, and he would remain in No. 10 Downing Street
even if he lost the vote.
Cabinet members,
meanwhile, were warned not to make the case for Brexit in parliament,
and not to speak out on the issue before an agreement on reform was
secured.
January 17 was a
pivotal day in the process: the introduction of the phrase “emergency
brake” to describe a mechanism to trigger a benefits ban if a
country was overwhelmed by migrants. Those two words would prove
contentious to the end.
By this point the
pressure was building. Tusk addressed the European Parliament in
Strasbourg, saying: “The result of the referendum is more
unpredictable than ever before. Time is of the essence here, and this
is why I will work hard to strike a deal in February. It will not be
easy but it is still possible.”
On January 29,
Cameron was in Brussels for meetings with Tusk, Martin Schulz and
Jean-Claude Juncker, plus a phone conversation with François
Hollande. The meeting with Juncker — who Cameron tried to keep from
becoming Commission president — was described as “difficult but
constructive.”
“I can’t be
certain we’ll get there in February but I will work as hard as I
can to deliver a good deal for the British people,” Cameron said.
His job wasn’t
made any easier by upping the ante on a benefits ban; tweaking the
language so every EU migrant who arrived in Britain at any time over
the next seven years would need to wait four years to receive
government benefits. (In a classic negotiating move, Cameron would
double-down on that proposal at the beginning of this summit, pushing
to extend the possibility for imposing the ban for an additional six
years.)
“The prime
minister will tell Tusk that the ‘brake’ proposal sketched out so
far does not go far enough and will need to be significantly
strengthened if it is to be as powerful as the prime minister’s
four-year proposal,” a senior U.K. government source said.
That request was
made at a dinner between Tusk and Cameron on January 31. Two days
later, the first of many drafts of the deal by Tusk and his team was
unveiled.
“It is a dismal
failure worse than we ever imagined,” Britain’s biggest-selling
tabloid, the Sun, said of the Tusk draft. “Brussels, not for the
first time, has treated us with contempt and given us the square root
of diddly-squat.”
It wasn’t a view
shared by U.S. President Barack Obama, who called Cameron to voice
his support for keeping Britain in the EU.
The European
Parliament was all giddy on February 4 when Cameron finally accepted
a long-standing invitation to address MEPs. However, he had no
intention of being hijacked by the Euroskeptics in the chamber and
agreed only to speak with the group leaders, on February 16.
The joy was
short-lived. Cameron later said that “time constraints” — read
“I don’t want to be in the same room as Marine Le Pen and Nigel
Farage” — meant he couldn’t speak with group leaders, just
Schulz and selected others.
Even with the
troublemakers out of the way, it wasn’t all plain sailing for
Cameron in the Parliament as Schulz said he could not guarantee the
assembly would give its blessing to the welfare reform proposal. Even
as this summit ended, Schulz was talking of Parliament’s potential
for tweaking the measures when they are implemented.
The deal to keep
Britain in the EU, it seems, is never quite done.
Hortense Goulard and
Craig Winneker contributed to this article.
Authors:
Paul Dallison
|
UK
heads for referendum after Cameron wins EU deal
Cameron
can now announce a date for Britain’s In/Out referendum on EU
membership.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG AND TARA PALMERI 2/19/16, 10:11 PM CET Updated 2/20/16,
12:31 AM CET
European leaders
acceded to David Cameron’s demands for special status for the U.K.
on Friday, prompting him to vow to campaign “heart and soul” to
stay in the EU and avoid a historic schism that could herald the
collapse of the bloc.
After a marathon
two-day negotiating session in Brussels, the 28 leaders of the
European Union agreed to the Tory leader’s demands, paving the way
for him to call a referendum on his country’s membership of the EU,
which is expected in late June.
“The British
people must now decide whether to stay in this reformed European
Union, or to leave,” he told reporters. The U.K. prime minister
will brief his cabinet on Saturday and address parliament on Monday
to set the referendum in motion.
The deal is the
culmination of months of behind-the-scenes negotiations between
London and other European capitals.
Lithuanian President
Dalia Grybauskaitė was the first to call it a done deal, tweeting:
“Agreement #UKinEU done. Drama over.”
Although Cameron
hailed the deal as a major breakthrough, won after a long and
sometimes acrimonious fight, it’s far from certain it will be
enough to convince a divided U.K. public to remain in the EU. Much of
the British press is hostile to Europe and has joined the anti-EU
U.K. Independence Party in assailing the reforms Cameron will bring
home from Brussels.
Nonetheless, if the
prime minister had failed to win a deal, the so-called Brexit would
have been almost inevitable.
Even so, a number of
senior EU officials — and the German government — worry the
timing of the U.K. initiative has distracted attention from the more
immediate threat presented by the refugee crisis. Though leaders
discussed migration Thursday night, they made little headway,
agreeing only to redouble efforts to enlist Turkey’s help in
stemming the flow of refugees.
The contours of the
U.K. deal were in place well before the summit. Though leaders had to
bridge genuine disagreements, in particular over the British
insistence on curtailing social benefits to EU migrants, the two-day
meeting was more about symbolism than substance.
Europe wants UK in
As he entered the
summit Thursday, Cameron said he would be “battling for Britain.”
Leaders from France and Eastern Europe played their part as well,
voicing skepticism over Cameron’s demands. The aim, diplomats
acknowledged privately, was to make it appear that Cameron won bona
fide concessions from a recalcitrant EU establishment.
French President
Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras meet on the second day of the European Summit
In truth, most
European leaders had few objections and some even welcomed aspects of
the reforms. Countries such as Germany and Austria, for example, both
of which have sizeable populations of Eastern Europeans, support
limiting child benefits to workers whose families reside in their
home countries.
“Every member
state will be able to describe it as a good deal for Europe and a
good deal for the U.K.,” said Jonathan Faull, chief of the Task
Force on U.K. Reform at the European Commission. “It shows that
Europe wants the U.K. in it.”
Some aspects of the
plan represented true concessions by core European countries. One of
the most controversial points involved an agreement to give the U.K.
and other non-euro members the right to formally object to changes in
eurozone economic governance. The U.K. had pushed for an outright
veto, but France was wary of giving London too much say. The
compromise allows both camps to claim victory.
“The deal responds
to all the concerns of the U.K. and respects at the same time the
principles of the European Union. The deal does not deepen cracks in
our Union, but builds bridges,” said European Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker.
Now comes the hard
part
Summing up the gains
for Britain, Cameron said:”There will be tough new restrictions on
access to our welfare system for EU migrants; no more something for
nothing. Britain will never join the euro and we’ve secured vital
protections for our economy.”
In a sense,
convincing the EU to revamp the U.K.’s terms of membership was the
easy part: his biggest challenge will be selling the package at home
before the referendum, which is widely expected to be held on June
23. Then the prime minister, and his chief political operator George
Osborne, chancellor of the Exchequer, will get to work convincing the
most influential figures in the Tory party not to back Brexit.
This week Cameron
met London’s popular mayor, Boris Johnson, who is still sitting on
the fence despite being named by one pollsters as the second most
influential political in the debate after Cameron himself. “No deal
as far as I know,” Johnson told reporters as he left Number 10 on
Wednesday.
On Friday, U.K.
media reports suggested Justice Secretary Michael Gove, a key cabinet
ally of the prime minister, was about to make public his support for
the Out camp.
Craig Winneker,
Stephen Brown and Joanna Plucinska contributed to this article.
Authors:
Matthew Karnitschnig
and Tara Palmeri
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