Cameron takes home ‘special status’ EU deal
LONDON: Prime Minister David Cameron takes a deal giving Britain ‘special status’ in the EU back to London yesterday hoping it will be enough to keep his country in the bloc as campaigning begins for a crucial in-out referendum.
The British premier is expected to announce a date for the vote, likely June 23, after sealing unanimous support for the agreement during two days and nights of intense negotiations in Brussels.
Cameron will hold a cabinet meeting at 1000 GMT yesterday, after which the referendum campaign will whirr into life, with ministers who want Britain to leave the European Union being allowed to speak out for the first time.
“I’ve negotiated a deal to give the UK special status in the European Union,” Cameron told a press conference on Friday evening.
“I will be campaigning with all my heart and soul to persuade the British people to remain in
I’ve negotiated a deal to give the UK special status in the European Union. — David Cameron, Britain’s Prime Minister
the reformed European Union that we have secured today.”
He said the deal contained a seven-year “emergency brake” on welfare payments for EU migrants and meant Britain would be “permanently out of ever closer union”.
While Britain’s place in the EU now rests in the hands of the British public, the deal relieves some of the pressure on Brussels as it grapples with the biggest migration crisis in Europe’s history.
EU president Donald Tusk, who brokered the agreement, said the “unanimous” deal “strengthens Britain’s special status in the EU” and was “legally binding and irreversible”.
German Chancellor Angela Merk el, Europe’ s most powerful leader, said the accord was a ‘fair compromise’.
“I do not think that we gave too much to Great Britain,” she said.
French President Francois Hollande insisted the deal contained “no exceptions to the rules” of the EU, but Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi warned “there is a risk of us losing sight of the original European dream”.
The euro and British pound gained after the announcement, with the single currency rising to US$1.1131 in New York, from US$1.1105 Thursday, and the pound to US$1.4392 from US$1.4335.
Yet the drama is only just beginning for Cameron, as he battles eurosceptic members of his own Conservative Party and scepticism within the British media. — AFP