UK in deadline to cut benefits for EU workers before Brexit referendum
A key role in the process will be played by Europe minister Dara Murphy, who will help draw up proposals aimed at winning the support of EU leaders who are members of the European People’s Party.
He will be working with David McAllister, a German MEP with a Scottish father, known as the eyes and ears in the European Parliament of German chancellor Angela Merkel and tasked with convincing British MEPs to stay in the EU.
They are to produce a compromise proposal for the EPP pre-summit meeting in February that will be attended by the leaders of eight member states, including Ms Merkel and Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
Mr Kenny, who appealed to his fellow EU leaders to help find a compromise to keep Britain in the EU during the two day summit, said that British prime minister David Cameron was not looking for Treaty change or a veto.
However, Mr Cameron specifically mentioned the protocols that Ireland got before the second Lisbon referendum on neutrality, tax, and abortion and that later became part of the EU Treaty when it was changed to admit Croatia as a member.
Whether the protocol would require a referendum in Ireland would depend on their content, said Mr Murphy.
Mr Cameron’s proposal to deprive workers from other EU countries of in-work benefits for the first four years they work in Britain raised problems because it would discriminate against EU citizens, interfere with the principle of free movement, said Mr Kenny, adding that the four-year timescale was also an issue.
Mr Cameron did not withdraw his proposal on this and other issues, because there was no other proposition on the table. “But he is prepared to work to get an outcome on this as is everyone else…focusing on these issues that were of concern,” the Taoiseach said.
Mr Cameron, who warned he could campaign for the UK to leave the EU if he does not get reforms, took a much more positive approach before he left Brussels.
He told journalists: “We are a step closer to agreement on the significant and far reaching reforms that I have proposed. It is going to tough and there is a lot of hard work to do, but I believe that 2016 will be the year that we achieve something really vital, fundamentally changing the Britain’s relationship with the EU and finally addressing the concerns of the British people about our membership.”
He said part of the pressure caused by recent arrivals in Britain was caused by the top-up welfare system that sees people trained as doctors in poorer EU countries willing to take unskilled jobs in the UK.
On the timing of the vote, he said that he wanted an agreement at the summit on February 18 but had given himself until the end of 2017 to hold the referendum.
