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Schulz said he was open to listening to the prime minister's pitch, but was sceptical that Cameron would succeed. "We need the UK in the European Union as a fully fledged member", Schulz told the Guardian in an interview. "But is it prepared to make the EU stronger and not weaker?"
The prime minister is sounding increasingly insistent that he will be able to secure a new EU deal for Britain by repatriating powers ceded to Brussels, through a renegotiation of EU treaties, before putting the proposed pact to an in-out UK referendum in 2017 if he is re-elected next year. Speaking on Sunday about freedom of movement within the EU, Cameron said: "You've either got to change it with other European countries at the moment, or potentially change it through the treaty change that I'll be putting in place before the referendum we will hold on Britain's membership of the EU".
Rather than repatriating powers from Brussels, Schulz said he would be open to discussing "a re-delegation of duties" within the EU, arguing that the commission in Brussels was too big and tried to do too much. This view coincides with that of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Schulz is a German Social Democrat whose party has just gone into coalition with Merkel's Christian Democrats in Berlin. "I go with him [Cameron] as far as I share his views", said Schulz. "My message to the commission would be: what are the things we are doing here that we don't need to do here."
But he voiced mild frustration that Downing Street had yet to make clear what it wants from a proposed new dispensation. It is a view shared broadly across EU capitals. "Cameron should make his suggestions for reform of the EU and then we can discuss it openly. I don't believe it is good to say 'these are my points and if you don't agree I'm going out'. It is not in the interests of the UK to go in this direction. Let's be pragmatic and not look at it ideologically."
"If the UK goes out, they will not be part of the transatlantic trade relationship. It's unthinkable", said Schulz. But a British exit is becoming increasingly thinkable, with senior officials and diplomats in Brussels emphasising that the UK question will move sharply up the European agenda this year.
For the next few years, said one senior diplomat, "the existential questions in the EU are the governance of the eurozone, the treaty changes needed for that and whether the UK stays in and on what terms".