David Cameron’s timetable for reform in Europe ‘impossible’.The Observer view on David Cameron’s immigration speech. / OBSERVER.

David Cameron’s timetable for reform in Europe ‘impossible’

EU experts cast doubt over prime minister’s ability to secure changes to European law before referendum on membership

Toby Helm

The Observer, Saturday 29 November 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/29/david-cameron-europe-timetable-impossible

David Cameron was facing new pressure over Europe as Tory Eurosceptics and EU experts cast doubt over his ability to secure changes to European law before a promised referendum on the UK’s membership in 2017.

The prime minister conceded on Friday that some of his plans aimed at stemming the flow of EU migrants to this country – including banning in-work benefits such as tax credits for four years – will require changes to EU treaties. “There is no doubt this package will require some treaty change, and I’m confident we can achieve that,” he said.

Under the proposals, jobless migrants would not qualify for unemployment benefits, and those who cannot find a job within six months would have to leave the country. However, Tory MPs and experts on EU treaties said that, even if he was able to negotiate such a package with fellow EU leaders, it would be impossible to complete the process of ratification in the 28 member states in time for a referendum on the amended rules in 2017.

Unless the referendum was then delayed beyond 2017, British people would be asked to vote “yes” or “no” to continued membership despite the fact that the renegotiated terms could subsequently be vetoed by any single member state.

A new EU treaty has to be approved in every member state, either by its national parliament or in a referendum.

The Observer understands that British officials – aware of the potential problem – are already examining possible options under which a referendum could be held before ratification had been completed.

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, an independent thinktank dedicated to promoting a reform agenda within the EU, said: “The British government will not have got all the treaty changes ratified by 2017.” He believes the UK may have to ask for what is known in diplomatic jargon as a “postdated cheque” – an assurance that the changes would be implemented in future when they had all been approved by national governments or in referendums.

Bill Cash, the veteran Tory Eurosceptic, said: “It’s impossible to finalise a new treaty by 2017. Not only time-wise, but also I do not believe the 28 will sign up to it.”

Robert Oulds, director of the Thatcherite thinktank, the Bruges Group, headed by Tory peer Norman Tebbit, claimed Cameron was misleading the public. “It is definitely not achievable. Cameron is hoodwinking people by saying it can be achieved.”

Mark Leonard, director of the pan-European thinktank, the European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that any significant treaty change could not be finalised and agreed by all member states by 2017, meaning there would still be doubt about the central premise of a UK referendum.

Labour MEP Richard Corbett, former adviser to president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy, said: “The idea that you can define a treaty change in 2015, agree it in 2016, and ratify it everywhere in 2017 is just totally unrealistic.”

Pat McFadden, the shadow minister for Europe, said there was a willingness on the part of other EU countries to help the UK, though it was far from clear what would be agreed, and on what timescale. He added: “It is very important that the negotiations are conducted in a constructive way and that they are not driven by an arbitrary timetable that was set to satisfy the Conservative party rather than for the national interest.”

Tory MP and former Europe minister David Davis said he believed that meeting a timetable that enabled the prime minister to call a referendum in 2017 would be “difficult but not impossible”. To do so, Cameron would have to give the EU a deadline of the middle of 2016 to complete the discussions and reach agreement. A referendum would then have to be held before the ratification process had been completed in the 28 member states.

The Observer view on David Cameron’s immigration speech

The prime minister was wrong to ramp up the rhetoric and portray migrants as a drain on the state

Observer editorial

The Observer, Sunday 30 November 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/30/observer-view-david-cameron-immigration-speech

Britain’s long-held ambivalence towards the European project was given another dismal airing on Friday when David Cameron gave a speech in the West Midlands billed as “potentially historic” and one of the most momentous of his career. His task was to get himself out of a hole of his own making on Britain’s potential exit from the European Union, woo back Tory voters attracted by Ukip and manage those of his increasingly militant backbenchers whose goal is to say adieu to EU membership. In addition, Cameron’s strategy is to try to displace immigration from the top of the list of voters’ concerns so that the spotlight, once again, can focus on the economy, due to be showcased in George Osborne’s autumn statement this week.

“Immigrants make a huge contribution to Britain,” Cameron said in 2011 and went on to promise to cut the numbers of immigrants to “tens of thousands” by 2015. Last week, instead, it was revealed that in the year to June 2014, net migration was 260,000. On Friday, the prime minister again talked at length about the benefits migrants have brought and Britain’s history as “an open country”. He warned against the “snake oil of simple solutions”. In not advocating a cap on EU immigrants or an “emergency brake” – both a rebuttal of one of the fundamental planks of the European Union, the free flow of labour – Cameron indicated that he had heeded the warnings from Germany to avoid a position that would curtail this country’s EU renegotiations before they even commenced.

However, the portrait Cameron then went on to paint of the EU citizen coming to these shores to milk the system was ugly and disingenuous. Usefully for him, it distracted from fundamental flaws in our economy, namely, the lack of investment in skills, qualifications and housing and the huge subsidies paid to employers from the public purse in the form of in-work benefits to boost pitifully low wages.

Friday’s speech was supposed to draw “a red line” on immigration reform. Mr Cameron said he wanted to find “a sensible way through… which will help settle this country’s place in the EU once and for all”. Instead, the Tory Eurosceptics are further inflamed and the response of Der Spiegel in Germany was a headline that read: “Cameron blackmails the EU”. Among the measures Cameron intends is banning in-work benefits such as working tax credit and housing benefit for EU migrants for four years, an end to the payment of child benefit to parents whose children live abroad, deportation of an immigrant who is jobless for six months and a four-year wait before eligibility for social housing is granted. They are all measures that are possibly illegal and, even if watered down – a two-year wait for eligibility for benefits? – they are potentially extremely difficult to deliver since the agreement of the other 27 member states is required.

Britain does face a number of challenges on immigration. The way in which Cameron framed those challenges as primarily the exploitation of Britain’s welfare system was itself toxic and negative. Cameron said that a migrant in full-time work on a minimum wage with two children currently receives £700 a month in support from the state; twice the amount paid in Germany and three times as much as in France. “No wonder so many people come to Britain,” he said. The way statistics are selected shapes the argument. According to figures from the thinktank Open Europe, Britain pays £5bn a year to 415,000 foreign nationals. Open Europe says the change would mean, for instance, that a single worker coming to the UK from Spain, instead of seeing his or her income boosted by a third, would receive 8% less than in their Spanish wage packet.

The difficulty is that if the Spanish worker then stays at home (and first he or she has to find a job in a depressed economy), who will fill the numerous low-paid vacancies in, for instance, the UK care industry? As Katja Hall, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, says: “Immigration has helped to keep the wheels of this recovery turning by plugging skills shortages and allowing UK firms to grow.” A recent study by the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration at University College London indicates that migrants added £20bn to the UK economy in the decade to 2011 and that migrants from the EU paid significantly more in taxes than they claimed in benefits. Add to that, foreign students who bring in billions but as a result of tighter rules for student visas are going elsewhere, according to Universities UK, and £2.4bn may be lost to the British economy over the next decade.

As Professor Ian Goldin argued on these pages earlier this month, immigrants are also drawn from the highly skilled and motivated. The US Federal Reserve Bank found that “immigrants expand the economy’s productive capacity by stimulating investment and promoting specialisation.” This is in part because immigrants tend to be “exceptional people” who strive to overcome adversity. This is the positive and vibrant side of the immigration debate that Cameron, Ed Miliband or Nick Clegg never flag up. They are so keen to adopt populist rhetoric that they throw away the opportunity to reframe the debate positively.

Immigration, however, isn’t just about welfare, employment and money. A cultural factor is also at play. Between 1997 and 2009, 2.2 million people came to live in the UK. In many deprived seaside towns, the change was rapid and public services were and are desperately underfunded. Slashing support for learning English as a second language, for instance, shows ignorance of the importance of integration. It’s welcome news therefore that Cameron announced on Friday more financial support for local authorities dealing with large number of immigrants and already fighting savage cuts. Controlled migration isn’t just policing who comes into the country and who doesn’t. It’s also about proper planning so assimilation is gradual and sufficient resources are available while an open debate about identity, rights, responsibilities and allegiances is encouraged, not silenced, by accusations of racism.

In tough times, it is easy to turn on “the other”, the foreigner in our midst, particularly when politicians wrongly ramp up their alleged leech-like intent to suck the public coffers dry. As long as the eurozone remains in crisis, and the world is divided between the ageing and relatively affluent and the young and impoverished, there will be immigration. The globe is on the move. How we respond is a mark of the values we uphold as a country that believes in fairness, justice and prosperity for all, not just the few.