Cameron targets Brussels over Brexit

As Euroskepticism builds at home, British PM deploys diplomats to EU.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has launched a new outreach effort targeting key EU politicians in a bid to stress-test reform proposals that would prevent a U.K. exit.

Cameron and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, spent part of their summer touring European capitals to meet with EU leaders. Now top-level U.K. emissaries are focusing on Brussels, with a series of meetings to explain
the British agenda and explore areas of possible compromise.

The diplomatic push comes at a crucial time for the debate on Britain’s status in the EU. Poll numbers show support for U.K. membership dropping as Europe struggles with crises ranging from Greece to migration that do not help Brussels’ already shaky image in Britain. A new survey from ICM showed support for a Yes vote just 3 percentage points ahead of No.

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Opposition to Britain’s EU membership is now a dominant political force in the country, with Cameron flanked on the left by new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who has been critical of the EU throughout his career, and on the right by the anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party.

The new Brussels visits are part of a strategy of engagement — not yet negotiations — building up to a European summit in December at which Cameron is expected to lay out his plans for the referendum. The up-
or-down vote on EU membership will be held before the end of 2017 but could come as early as next summer.

The British prime minister has also been asked by the European Parliament’s president, Martin Schulz, to address the assembly before that summit. Cameron, according to Downing Street officials, is still considering the request.

For now, though, the focus is on quiet diplomacy.

“They’re doing a lot of confidential talks in the Commission, the Council and now they’re starting to reach out to Parliament, talking to MEPs from the different groups,” said David McAllister, a German MEP from the European People’s Party.

McAllister, who is half-Scottish, has good relations with British Conservatives in the European Parliament and close ties to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He said he has met with two of Cameron’s representatives in the past two weeks.

Britain’s minister for European affairs, David Lidington, was in Brussels Tuesday for meetings with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, vice president Frans Timmermans, transport commissioner Violeta Bulc and humanitarian aid commissioner Christos Stylianides, as well as with MEPs and diplomats.

Lidington also met with key officials helping to shape the EU’s response to whatever Cameron wants, including Martin Selmayr, Juncker’s chief of staff, and Jonathan Faull, who leads a new Commission task force on the referendum.

“I’ve seen a number of Commissioners, a large number of members of the European Parliament, from different political groups,” Lidington said after his visit with Timmermans, in a video clip made by the U.K. Foreign Office & Commonwealth Office. Lidington added that the U.K. was pushing for trade deals with the U.S. and Japan, deepening the single market and deregulation for business growth.

He said in his meetings at the Commission there was “a recognition that Europe needs to work together to make its businesses much more effective at creating wealth and creating jobs, especially for young people who need a job today.”

Last week, Downing Street sent special advisor Mats Persson, the pro-EU former director of the Open Europe think tank, to Strasbourg to lobby MEPs on U.K. plans for single market reform and trade deals.

Downing Street has been sounding out individual MEPs for their thoughts on free trade and on the Commission’s plans to streamline regulation and cut red tape. But a Parliament source said many MEPs are also waiting to hear concrete reform proposals from Britain — not to mention a firm date for the referendum vote.

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“The U.K. is upping its engagements with the European Parliament, as the European Parliament has a role in a lot of areas of reform like the single market, so it’s important to talk to them and explain the U.K.’s agenda,” said a British diplomat. “This shows that we’re taking the EP seriously.”

U.K. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond will visit Brussels next week, according to diplomatic sources. While there is constant contact between officials on technical matters, Hammond is part of Cameron’s core team on EU reform, along with Osborne, Lidington and Ivan Rogers, the U.K.’s permanent representative in Brussels.

Commission officials said they are still in “listening mode” and are waiting to see more concrete demands from the U.K. But they are already planning to introduce a new labor mobility package to address two key reform areas Britain has already said must be dealt with before the referendum, and which are related to the migration crisis: freedom of movement in the EU and so-called “benefits tourism.”

There was already EU progress Tuesday on the latter issue, with a European Court of Justice ruling upholding the right of countries to deny certain social benefits to economic migrants. British Conservative MEPs hailed the decision as a positive sign.

“This is a major endorsement of our stance on benefit tourism and our views on free movement,” said U.K. MEP Anthea McIntyre. “Increasingly the rest of Europe is seeing things our way. It bodes well for one of our key areas of renegotiation.”

Cameron still has not decided whether he will accept the European Parliament’s invitation to debate the referendum issue directly with MEPs. But diplomatic sources say Lidington and others are laying the groundwork so that if Cameron does speak in Strasbourg, his visit will go smoothly.

“It’s not going to be an easy process,” said Aled Williams, the U.K. spokesman in Brussels. “There will be bumps along the way, there will be noise around it, but by showing a desire to talk to other leaders in Europe, the U.K. is showing that it wants to succeed.”