David Cameron sets out EU reform goals

David Cameron has outlined his four goals for reforming the UK’s membership of the EU, including restrictions on benefits for people coming to the UK.

He said Britain faced a “huge decision” in the in/out referendum promised before the end of 2017.

But he said he was confident of getting what he wanted from reform talks.

Anti-EU campaigners say the talks are a “gimmick” – and the European Commission said the UK’s benefits proposals could break free movement laws.

Curbing EU migration is by far the most vexed issue, although some areas are welcomed by the majority of other EU countries – such as putting a moratorium on the ability of citizens of new EU members’ to live and work across the EU until their economies have caught up, also cracking down on benefit tourism and limiting child benefits and out-of work benefits for migrants.

The sticking point is undoubtedly in-work benefits. Central and Eastern European countries with a fluid workforce, such as Poland, are loud opponents, although privately they say they would be happy if their best and brightest would think twice before abandoning their homeland.

But it is powerhouse Germany that will be the most stubborn stick in the wheel here.

Discriminating against EU workers goes against one of the founding EU principles – the freedom to work anywhere in the European Union.

Again though, Germany has been clear it will do its utmost to accommodate the UK in its reform demands.

David Cameron said benefit restrictions were needed to cut “very high” and “unsustainable” levels of immigration but added: “I understand how difficult some of these welfare issues are for some member states, and I’m open to different ways of dealing with this issue.”

He claimed 40% of recent European Economic Area migrants received an average of around £6,000 a year of in-work benefits – although others have questioned those figures.

The prime minister said he wants the UK to stay in a reformed EU, but he has not ruled out recommending leaving if he cannot secure the change he wants with the leaders of the other 27 EU countries.

He did rule out a second referendum if Britain voted to leave, saying: “You the British people will decide. At that moment you will hold this country’s destiny in your hands. This is a huge decision for our country – perhaps the biggest we will make in our lifetimes. And it will be a final decision.”

And he said the changes Britain wanted “do not fall in the box marked ‘impossible’.

“They are eminently resolvable, with the requisite political will and political imagination.”

BBC