A draft proposal for the UK’s renegotiation of its EU membership was published on 2 February. Benjamin Leruth assesses whether the proposal meets the goals set out in David Cameron’s letter to Donald Tusk in November. He writes that while in principle the key aims set out by Cameron have been met, there remains a long way to go before a final deal can be secured with all of the EU’s member states

Leruth, Benjamin

LSE Research Online

2/3/2016The UK’s renegotiation proposal: A good compromise, but muchneeds to be done to convince votersblogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/02/03/the-uks-draft-renegotiation-proposal-a-good-compromise-but-much-needs-to-be-done-to-convince-voters/A draft proposal for the UK’s renegotiation of its EU membership was published on 2 February.Benjamin Leruth assesses whether the proposal meets the goals set out in David Cameron’s letterto Donald Tusk in November. He writes that while in principle the key aims set out by Cameron havebeen met, there remains a long way to go before a ﬁnal deal can be secured with all of the EU’smember states.On 2 February, Donald Tusk unveiled a draft proposal for a new settlement for the United Kingdomwithin the European Union. This long-awaited, 16-pages long proposal, oﬀers four baskets ofreforms in the ﬁelds of economic governance, competitiveness, sovereignty; and social beneﬁts/free movement,which were identiﬁed in David Cameron’s letter to Donald Tusk published in November 2015. This proposal formsthe basis for the European Council meeting that will be taking place on 18-19 February. Should all EU memberstates agree on these terms, it is expected that the agreement will be ﬁnalised then.Economic governanceThe 2015 Conservative Party manifesto stated the party’s commitment to ‘protect [the United Kingdom] from anyfurther integration of the Eurozone’, which leaves the UK out of the inner circle of Eurozone member states. Whilethe draft plan recognises the need to deepen integration in this policy area, the series of measures proposed byDonald Tusk rely on the principle of mutual respect between EU member states participating or not in thedevelopment of the Economic and Monetary Union [EMU]. More particularly, the document states that countries thatdo not participate in the EMU or in the banking union will not be liable to support the Eurozone. In sum, theseproposals may lead to an increased diﬀerentiation between EMU and non-EMU members in the European Union.CompetitivenessIn his letter from November 2015, David Cameron highlighted the need to ‘boost the competitiveness andproductivity of the European Union and to drive growth and jobs for all’. The suggested response from Donald Tuskis rather short: he insists that EU institutions and member states should take concrete steps toward betterregulation, in order to lower administrative burdens and compliance costs on business.This section does not introduce any particular novelty or exemption for the United Kingdom, but aims at reassuringthe British authorities (and voters) that the European Union is moving toward better regulation and less constraintsfor business owners.SovereigntyDavid Cameron’s initial proposal was threefold: getting an opt-out from the concept of ‘ever closer Union’; enhancingthe role of national parliaments in the European decision-making process; and emphasising the importance of theprinciple of subsidiarity. The three-page response from Donald Tusk clearly responds to the United Kingdom’sdemands.Firstly, while it insists that the notion of ‘ever closer union’ does not oﬀer a basis for extending the scope of EuropeanTreaties and legislation, it also recognises that the United Kingdom ‘is not committed to further political integrationinto the European Union’. The proposal further states that the United Kingdom’s ‘speciﬁc situation’ will beincorporated into the treaties, thus oﬀering a (mostly symbolic) opt-out from this concept.1/3David Cameron and Donald Tusk, Credit: European Council President (CC-BY-SA-2.0)Secondly, the proposal suggests the introduction of aso-called ‘red card’ procedure, enabling nationalparliaments to block unwanted legislative proposals incase of non-compliance with the principle ofsubsidiarity. While the existing ‘yellow card’ systemhas once proved to be successful in terms ofinﬂuencing EU policy, it remains to be seen whetherthe proposed ‘red card’ procedure would eﬀectivelybe used by national parliaments.Social beneﬁts and free movementImmigration is a highly politicised issue in the UnitedKingdom, and constituted one of the key topics raisedduring the last general election. It is also likely to beone of the key issues that will inﬂuence undecidedvoters in the EU referendum. In its manifesto, theConservative Party proposed that ‘EU migrants whowant to claim tax credits and child beneﬁt must livehere and contribute to our country for a minimum of four years. This will reduce the ﬁnancial incentive for lower-paid,lower-skilled workers to come to Britain.’ This policy, dubbed a ‘four-year emergency brake’, was restated in DavidCameron’s letter to Donald Tusk.While Eastern European countries are particularly reluctant to accept this principle as it would mean that theircitizens working in the UK would be discriminated against, the proposal included an ‘emergency brake’, which couldbe applied by any EU member state facing an ‘exceptional situation’ upon approval by the Council. However, thetimeframe still remains to be negotiated, with the draft text stating that the emergency brake would be extendable fortwo successive periods. This suggests that David Cameron and Donald Tusk were not able to reach an agreementon the issue.What next?In a nutshell, David Cameron delivered almost everything that was mentioned in the Conservative Party manifesto,in line with his EU Bloomberg speech from January 2013: an opt-out from ever closer union; increaseddiﬀerentiation and mutual respect between Eurozone and non-Eurozone member states; cutting EU ‘red tape’;introducing a ‘red card’ system for national parliaments; and introducing a four-year emergency brake on beneﬁts forEU migrants.Based on the initial demands included in the Conservative manifesto, this is a decent deal for both the UnitedKingdom and the European Union. In a speech given at Chippenham, David Cameron strongly defended the draftdeal, stating that the UK would have ‘the best of both worlds’ under these terms. However, both David Cameron andDonald Tusk will now have to reach an agreement with some of the most reluctant EU member states, particularlyPoland, at the European Council on 18-19 February. It is expected that the proposed emergency brake and itstimeframe will be the main subject of discussion.Should the deal be sealed, it remains to be seen whether the proposal will be suﬃcient to convince undecided votersat the domestic level. On the one hand, ‘leave’ campaigners, such as Leave.EU and Vote Leave, have alreadycriticised the renegotiation plan, stating that demands have been watered down by the EU. On the other, theStronger In campaign applauded the deal and denounced the ‘hypocrisy of leave campaigners’. Now that the draftdeal is out, the oﬃcial referendum campaign may now be only weeks away.Please read our comments policy before commenting .2/3Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, norof the London School of Economics.Shortened URL for this post: http://bit.ly/207AogR _________________________________About the authorBenjamin Leruth – University of KentBenjamin Leruth is a Research Associate at the University of Kent. He has a PhD from theUniversity of Edinburgh and previously worked as a Teaching Fellow in Politics at the University ofBath, and a guest researcher at the ARENA Centre for European Studies (University of Oslo).3/3

The UK’s renegotiation proposal: a good compromise, but much needs to be done to convince voters

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online