09 November 2015

POLITICO: David Cameron’s Brexit brinkmanship

[...] The truth is that Cameron’s reforms — on sovereignty, fairness, immigration and growth — are meaty and substantive. The agenda on reducing red-tape, completing the single market and signing free-trade deals, if realized, could create millions of jobs. The new deal between the eurozone and non-eurozone members — where the non-eurozone allows the eurozone access to collective EU institutions in exchange for safeguards on the single market — is an idea whose time has come.

The questions around sovereignty — about the role of national parliaments and the language of ever closer union — are less substantive but could help reassure the public that the EU is not an out-of-control bloc bent on undermining national sovereignty. And to the British public the reforms that will have the most visibility are those around migration and welfare benefits. Cameron has stuck with his demand for four years of contributions before people can get “in work benefits.” [...]

Critics will say that many of these reforms were in place already. But that misses the fact that Britain has been an active and big player in the European club for many years so it would be surprising if issues of concern to it were not already on the agenda. In fact, there is a disconnect between the content of his reforms — which are ambitious and good for Europe as well as Britain — and the processwhich is seen in many capitals as dangerous for both. [...]

A skewed approach

Unfortunately, the way he presents the renegotiation in his speech implies that Britain needed to threaten to leave to get its way. This makes the EU appear as something that is being done to Britain — rather than a project that was largely made in London and which can, and always has, accommodated British concerns. [...]

Given how important the union between Britain and Europe is, it seems pretty likely that the EU will go a long way towards meeting Cameron’s demands. At the European Council on Foreign Relations, we have been tracking responses from all member states about all the major issues and we can see that there is widespread support for the ideas associated with growth across most of the EU. Given that these are of the biggest substance that seems pretty encouraging.

On the euro “ins” and “outs” there is a clearly a deal to be done, as George Osborne’s visit to Germany made clear. The sovereignty questions are largely symbolic and are presumably amenable to progress. The questions around access to benefits are more sensitive — although many member states are puzzled that the Cameron government doesn’t do more to deal with these issues by changing British policy — rather than demanding European action. [...]

But even on this, it seems, it should be possible to get more progress than many imagined at the beginning of the process — delaying the amount of time that workers from outside the U.K. can wait before getting access to in-work benefits. [...]

David Cameron will get most of what he is asking for — which will make staying in the EU even more in the British interest. However, once he gets it, he will need to start showing a bit more love for the EU so that his fellow citizens also feel that they should renew their vows with Brussels.

Winning the EU referendum will test his political skills more fully even than the Scottish referendum and the general election. And once it is all over, he will also need to prove to his fellow EU leaders that he will be a reliable partner. 

Full article in POLITICO

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