U.K. Foreign Secretary Says EU Talks Will Go to the Wire -- Update
15 February 2016 - 3:10AM
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.
On Monday, foreign ministers from the so-called Visegrad group,
which represents Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic,
are set to meet in Prague to discuss a common position ahead of the
leaders summit.
The four countries are among those most concerned about the
proposals to restrict benefits for migrants, with hundreds of
thousands of their citizens having moved to the U.K. in recent
years.
However, in an interview at the Munich Security Conference this
weekend, Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak said the proposals
as they stood didn't cross his government's red lines.
He said his government wanted to make sure that the in-work
restrictions don't affect current EU workers in Britain, that there
is no permanent discrimination against EU nationals and that only
child benefits would be affected by a proposal to index welfare
payments to the standard of living of the countries where a
worker's dependents actually lived. That could allow the U.K. to
reduce its child benefits bill.
"I think there's a fair chance we have a deal at the summit,"
Mr. Lajcak said. "We have always expressed our understanding of the
British" position.
Mr. Hammond said that if Britain cannot get the right deal on
its four key demands on competitiveness, the relationship between
EU member states with the euro and those 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.
Laurence Norman in Munich contributed to this article.
Write to Nicholas Winning at nick.winning@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 14, 2016 10:55 ET (15:55 GMT)
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