EU chief: No guarantee of a deal for Britain
EUROPEAN Council President Donald Tusk delivered a stark warning last night that there was ‘no guarantee’ a deal could be reached on David Cameron’s EU renegotiation.
Mr Tusk, who will lead a summit of leaders today in Brussels, admitted major obstacles remain to striking an agreement that would lead to a referendum in June.
France was last night threatening to block moves for Mr Cameron’s deal to be permanently protected in EU treaties, while Eastern European countries were still resisting curbs to migrant benefits.
However, officials said leaders will stay locked in talks, which begin tonight, until an agreement is reached – potentially meaning they will drag on until the weekend.
In a letter to all 28 leaders, Mr Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, warned it was a ‘crucial moment for the unity’ of the EU.
‘After my consultations in the last hours I have to state frankly: there is still no guarantee that we will reach an agreement,’ he said.
‘We differ on some political issues and it will be difficult to overcome them. Therefore I urge you to remain constructive.’
However, in a later interview with the BBC, Mr Tusk said he felt EU leaders would have ‘no choice’ but to come to some sort of deal. In his letter, he warned EU leaders must ‘make use’ of the momentum. ‘There will not be a better time for a compromise,’ he said. ‘It is our unity that gives us strength and we must not lose this. It would be a defeat both for the UK and the European Union, but a victory for those who seek to divide us.’
An EU diplomat last night said talks would continue as long as they needed to find consensus. ‘There’s a feeling that if we don’t solve this now, we never will,’ he said.
A senior EU official said there were four main sticking points to a deal, which were ‘the question of incorporation of some of the changes into future EU treaties, the question of [Euro] ins and outs, the emergency brake [on in-work benefits for migrants] and the question of the ever closer union’.
France last night launched an audacious last-minute bid to stop the deal being automatically incorporated into future revisions of the EU’s founding treaties.
Britain has warned that measures in the renegotiation package, such as curbs to migrant benefits and protections of the City of London, would be vulnerable to judicial challenge unless secured in the treaties.
While EU leaders have refused to revise the treaties immediately, the prime minister had hoped they would agree to automatically include the deal in them when they are updated in the next five years. However, France and Belgium are resisting the idea.