Cameron pressing leaders for ‘better deal for Britain’
LONDON — David Cameron, with a majority mandate from the British people, is off on a whirlwind tour of European Union capitals to seek “a better deal for Britain,” warning that otherwise Britain will leave the bloc.
Not long ago, Alexis Tsipras, with a fresh mandate from the Greek people, tried the same, with the threat of an exit.
But Tsipras has found the Europeans less accommodating than he hoped, and a crisis over Greece is looming. Cameron is likely to find a similar willingness to listen and help — but only up to a point, given the unwieldy nature of exceptions in a bloc with 28 members that could all crave special treatment.
A critical point
While the two cases are obviously different, they mark an important inflection point for the European Union, especially when euroskeptic parties have just had recent election victories in Finland, Poland, Spain and Britain, and the French National Front is continuing to challenge assumptions about even French membership in the European Union.
Greece is the more pressing problem, with negotiations on a new bailout going down to the wire, with default and a possible euro exit to follow. But even if Greece left the euro, painfully, it could remain a European Union member.
The possibility of “Brexit” — a British exit — raises perhaps an even more existential question about the future of the union, and Cameron is trying to concentrate minds on the possibility. He visited Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands and President François Hollande of France on Thursday, and will see Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz of Poland and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Friday.
While little is expected now except conversation, Cameron will ask Britons, “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?” by the end of 2017. Before that, Cameron wants concessions, including a treaty change that he is unlikely to get, since it would involve approval by all 28 governments.
Cameron says he wants change in four broad areas. He wants to restrict the right of legal European Union migrants to claim social welfare benefits and require them to wait up to four years to claim employment benefits for those with jobs. He wants to ensure that countries that do not use the euro, like Britain, cannot be hurt by rules made to govern the eurozone, to protect free trade in goods and financial services. He wants Britain excluded from its treaty obligation to seek an “ever closer union,” and he wants Brussels to return some powers to national parliaments.
Wants bill of rights
Further, though not a European Union issue, Cameron wants a British bill of rights, which could involve opting out of the European Convention on Human Rights, much as he has already decided not to accept quotas for refugees saved at sea.
The British desire to limit migration has already led “many on the continent to view Britain as a nasty country,” said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform here. “The worse Britain’s reputation, the less likely are other governments,” with their own domestic politics, “to give Cameron what he wants,” he said.
That may be especially true in Poland, which may agree with Cameron about Brussels but has felt insulted over immigration.
What Cameron suggests he wants may seem considerable to Europeans, but unambitious to euroskeptic Britons, who see this negotiation as a chance for change in Britain’s ties to the European Union.
Both Germany and France want Britain to remain. Despite traditional French skepticism about Britain’s commitment to the European idea, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said Thursday that “Britain is a military power, a diplomatic power.”
“If such an important country leaves Europe,” he said, “it will give an extremely negative impression of Europe.”