David Cameron struggles with resistance over UK deal

British Prime Minister David Cameron takes a seat before a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi during an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, Belgium, on Friday. — AFP

David Cameron struggled at a EU summit on Friday to overcome last pockets of resistance to a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc, with diplomats forecasting an agreement within hours.

“We are moving forward but we are not yet at a stage where a deal is almost done,” a British official told reporters. Mr Cameron was hoping to fly home and chair a Cabinet meeting later on Friday to endorse what he calls a “new settlement” with the EU, setting in motion plans to call a referendum on Britain’s future in the Union, probably for June 23. The stakes are high for both Britain and the EU, with opinion polls showing voters almost evenly split.

The risks of Mr Cameron’s strategy were highlighted on Friday when an opinion poll showed the campaign to leave the bloc had a two-per cent lead with 36 per cent support. The TNS poll showed 34 per cent of British voters wanted to stay in the bloc, 7 per cent would not vote and 23 per cent were undecided.

All sides at the summit said the toughest issue remained Britain’s drive to restrict welfare benefits for migrant workers from other EU countries, with east European states fighting to preserve the rights of expatriates already working in the UK and elsewhere. Summ-it chairman Donald Tusk, who had hoped to wrap up a deal at an “English breakfast” at 09:00 GMT, pushed back the resumption of the group meeting until after 12:30 GMT for what aides dubbed an “English lunch”.

Mr Tusk held a series of so-called “confessional” meetings with individual leaders to try to clear remaining obstacles in the meantime. Diplomats said differences with Fra-nce over London’s dem-ands for a mechanism to protect its financial centre from intrusive eurozone regulation had been narrowed down to just two words. Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka, representing that group, was battling to prevent the measures being applied to more than a million EU workers already in Britain and to avoid other countries piggy-backing on the child benefit cut. However, Danish Premier Lars Lokke Rasmussen said his country too was keen to apply a plan to index child benefit for EU workers whose children remain in their native country to their home country’s cost of living if Britain won. Mr Cameron was keen to show British voters he was fighting hard to secure a deal which he has called “the best of both worlds”. “I was here till five o’clock this morning working through this and we’ve made some progress but there’s still no deal,” he said. “As I’ve said I’ll only do a deal if we get what Britain needs. So we are going to get back in there, and we are going to do some more work and I’ll do everything I can.”

EU leaders’ talks to work out a deal to convince Britain to stay in the bloc have hit “critical” snags and leaders have been asked to book hotels for an additional night until Saturday, an EU official said. Britain’s largely euroskeptic press depicted Mr Cameron as begging or pleading, the Daily Mail describing him as “rattled”. “Shambles as embattled PM’s deal is watered down,” its front page read.