Focus turns from EU quotas to ‘pull’ factors
Chancellor Merkel’s reported words to David Cameron warning him to watch his step on Europe date back to the EU summit on 23/24 October. Back then David Cameron had been reported to be toying with slapping quotas or caps on the number of EU migrants who could come to the UK. That is a complete no-no for Germany and just about every other EU member.
Aware of this, the focus of No 10’s work seems to have shifted from so-called “volume” approaches like quotas to “pull factor” approaches to the net migration issue.
That means looking at adding to the changes in what EU migrants are entitled to when they come to the UK. You get a taster of the sort of things under consideration in the latest pamphlet from Open Europe.
The think-tank suggests restricting in-work benefits like tax credits to people who’ve been resident in the UK for three years and restricting free access to the NHS to three-year residents too.
For the most poorly paid EU migrants with young families, Open Europe thinks this could reduce their net income by as much as one half or two thirds. In better paid migrants’ cases the reduced differential between pay in their home country and pay plus benefits received in the UK would be less but still significant, Open Europe argues.
The House of Commons Library says 302,300 families from EU countries received either child and/or working tax credits in 2013. The numbers do not break down how many of these would have been here for three years and therefore be entitled to carry on receiving the benefits.
Sir Stephen Wall, official historian of Britain’s relationship with Europe and formerly our man in Brussels, says he thinks the Open Europe approach would not be an automatic non-negotiable no-no for Germany, as long as it doesn’t require a treaty change.
Open Europe claims it could be achieved with a European Union directive (the Times reports that some government lawyers aren’t so sure).
An EU directive requires qualified majority voting (as opposed to unanimity of all 28 EU members for a treaty change). Perhaps even more challengingly, a directive also requires the support of the European Parliament.
No 10 is still giving itself several weeks before it comes up with its plan to reduce net migration and has not itself decided exactly what the prime minister will announce.
There’s no guarantee at all that the sort of ideas floated by Open Europe would fly with EU partners like Germany, but they may at least be willing to discuss them. Whether those discussions would get anywhere is another matter.
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