EU referendum: David Cameron ‘battling for Britain’ at summit

David Cameron said he was “battling for Britain” as he arrived in Brussels for a crucial EU summit.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said he is “quite confident” European leaders can reach a deal with Britain over its future membership of the EU.

Mr Cameron aims to return with a reform package he can put to the British people in a referendum in June.

But he faces resistance to some of his key demands from other EU leaders.

Mr Cameron said: “We’ve got some important work to do today and tomorrow and it’s going to be hard.

“I’ll be battling for Britain. If we can get a good deal I’ll take that deal. But I will not take a deal that doesn’t meet what we need. I think it’s much more important to get this right than to do anything in a rush. But with goodwill, with hard work, we can get a better deal for Britain.”

Leaked copies of a final draft of Britain’s proposals, seen by the Guardian, suggest Mr Cameron still has to convince fellow EU leaders to agree to treaty changes to cement his reforms.

The documents also suggest France is still resisting attempts to secure protection for the City of London by giving non-eurozone nations more power to stall financial regulation.

Mr Cameron’s plan to cut the amount of child benefit EU migrants can send back to to their home countries would apply across the EU according to the leaked drafts – something that would be resisted by Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The key parts of UK deal:

• Allowing Britain to opt out from the EU’s founding ambition to forge an “ever closer union” of the peoples of Europe and greater powers to national parliaments to block EU legislation
• Restrictions on other EU nationals getting in-work benefits in the UK for four years. Changing child benefit rules so payment reflects cost of living in countries where the child lives
• Explicit recognition that the euro is not the only currency of the EU and guarantees to ensure countries outside eurozone are not disadvantaged or have to join eurozone bailouts
• A target for the reduction of the “burden” of excessive regulation and extending the single market

Senior EU officials have been talking up the chances of a deal, while admitting there are still difficulties that need to be ironed out.

“I’m quite confident that we will have a deal during this European Council,” Mr Juncker told reporters.

“We have to sort out a certain number of questions… and I’m convinced that Britain will be a constructive and active member of the European Union.”

European Council president Donald Tusk said “this is a make-or-break summit, I have no doubt” as he arrived.

By Laura Kuenssberg, BBC political editor

How on earth did the man who once accused the Conservatives of being out of touch for “banging on about Europe”, get himself into a position where he has already been “banging on about Europe” for months and months, and will spend the next four months still doing precisely that?

Most simply, as the years have passed, his party has changed.

As the EU expanded, and generations of MPs came and went, a soft scepticism towards the European project, neither full-throated support, nor hardcore opposition, became more common, and sympathy for the idea of a referendum spread from the margins.

The eurozone financial crisis, and the EU’s stumbling approach to sorting it out, gave a fresh energy to eurosceptic MPs who wanted to campaign to leave.

In part that apathy, if not downright dislike, towards the EU spread because of the enormous rise in the numbers of people from around the Union who came to live and work in the UK.

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EU Out campaigners say the draft reforms will make no difference to the number of migrants coming to Britain and will not allow the UK to block unwanted EU laws.

UKIP’s migration spokesman Steven Woolfe will lead a demonstration outside the meeting in protest at Mr Cameron’s “pitiful deal for Britain”.

He said: “The prime minister has asked for little and has been granted even less.

“He has taken his begging bowl to Brussels and, in an embarrassment for Britain, has produced a renegotiation package that fails to bring back control of our borders, reduce the daily cost of our membership or secure the sovereignty of our great nation.”

BBC