EU deal: we could be entering end game
It looks like a deal on the EU renegotiation could well be in front of us in draft form tomorrow.
That won’t be the end of the matter as negotiations continue on the detail, but there’s a growing sense in Whitehall that we could be entering the end game.
After the German proposal to redefine “worker” fell by the wayside in a quagmire of legal and national points, the European Commission’s own suggestion of adapting the “emergency brake” to get David Cameron off his hook became the main runner.
Brussels has been calling this a “temporary” brake which means the UK’s high net migration figures permit it to halt in-work benefits for newcomers from the EU for 2/4/7* years (*delete as applicable). Whitehall prefers to think of this as a “renewable”, not a “temporary”, brake and takes the view that if we qualify for it now we will qualify for it for some years to come.
In this time, it is hoped, the UK can re-think its own welfare arrangements for all claimants, UK and non-UK citizens alike, in a way that introduces a contributory element to a (almost uniquely in the EU) non-contributory system.
David Cameron would not have sealed the deal he promised in his manifesto but he will argue that he’s sealed something comparable, the same ends by different means.
Donald Tusk’s curt departure from Downing Street may have been a little over-interpreted. He likes his meetings pretty business-like and running to schedule.
That’s all the more reasons to expect that, if he has anything to do with it, the British renegotiation will be signed off in Brussels at the European Council on 18 and 19 February with little chance of things running into a “2 shirt” summit and a decent chance of them ending lunchtime Friday 19 November.
That probably still means that the Cabinet will have to wait until Monday morning until they get to chat about the details of the negotiation. Only after that discussion can ministers who want to dissent from the government line and oppose EU membership do so.
David Cameron would speak in the Commons on Monday 22 February. Who knows? A minister or two may speak from the backbenches to articulate their own opposition from behind him.
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