U.K. Foreign Secretary: EU Talks Will Go to the Wire
February 14 2016 - 8:36AM
Dow Jones News
By Nicholas Winning
LONDON--Negotiations on the U.K.'s demands for changes to its
relationship with the European Union are likely to go to the wire
and some issues won't be decided until the bloc's leaders meet at a
summit in Brussels on Thursday, U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip
Hammond said Sunday.
In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., Mr. Hammond
said the EU had agreed to the principle that the U.K. could have a
special regime for new European migrants--such as restrictions on
welfare entitlements--for four years. The move signals a major step
forward but Britain would have to work with other member states to
determine how it would work.
"What we have still got to discuss is what that difference in
treatment precisely is," he said. "I don't think that is going to
get resolved before Thursday. That will be on the table when the
prime minister is sitting in the European Council on Thursday."
Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to redraw Britain's
relationship with the EU and then hold a national referendum on
membership of the bloc by the end of 2017. The referendum could
come as soon as June if he manages to secure agreement on his
proposals at the two-day European Council summit starting this
week.
Mr. Cameron's plans for EU migrants to have to wait four years
before they are eligible for in-work welfare benefits in Britain is
the most contentious of his demands. Mr. Hammond said it wouldn't
be enough for those new migrants to be denied benefits for only one
year.
The Foreign Secretary said that if Britain can't get the right
deal on its four key demands on competitiveness--the relationship
between EU member states inside and outside the eurozone; national
sovereignty; and access to welfare benefits--"we will carry on
talking."
"Our European partners understand that we have to have a robust
deal in each of those areas if the British people are to vote to
remain inside the European Union," he said.
Mr. Hammond said it was already clear that Britain would get a
statement that it was outside the EU treaty commitment to "ever
closer union" and there would be a framework for the relationship
between eurozone and non-eurozone countries within the EU.
"We already seeing the shape of a deal but there's still a lot
of moving parts yet over the next few days," he said.
Write to Nicholas Winning at nick.winning@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 14, 2016 08:21 ET (13:21 GMT)
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