David Cameron has 24 hours to rescue his EU renegotiation from the Brexit threat
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It looked very dramatic, but Tusk had actually left behind his team of negotiators and David Cameron quickly tweeted that Tusk had given him 24 hours to publish the draft text of the renegotiation.
A good meeting with @eucopresident, who has agreed to another 24 hours of talks before publishing the draft UK renegotiation text.
- David Cameron (@David_Cameron) January 31, 2016
Interestingly, while Cameron's tweet kind of makes its look like there isn't anything to stop a draft agreement being published within 24 hours, Tusk tweeted a few minutes later to emphasise that there is "no deal yet."
No deal yet. Intensive work in next 24 crucial. #UKinEU
- Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) January 31, 2016
So why the sudden deadline? The rumor is that Cameron wants to hold the EU referendum on June 23. Before he calls the referendum, Cameron wants to complete his renegotiation of Britain's membership of the EU, and, in order to satisfy Britain's electoral commission's guidelines for the amount of time between calling an election and holding it, he has to get an agreement before the EU's leaders gather at a European Council meeting on February 18 to stage a vote in June.
In order for there to be an agreement on February 18, Cameron needs Tusk to sign off on the draft of what he is willing to accept in the renegotiation, and Tusk will only sign if he thinks there is a good chance the leaders of all the EU member states will agree to it.
So the situation is this: Cameron's team of negotiators - Ed Llewellyn, Sir Ivan Rogers and Tom Scholar - are locked in Downing Street with Tusk's people and they've got until about 9 p.m. to reach a compromise.
It all sounds very dramatic, which actually suits both Cameron and Tusk. They can say they fought really hard to get the best deal they could. But as Cameron hints in his tweet, they are probably really close to working something out.
The thing that EU leaders didn't like about the renegotiation was that Cameron wanted to stop paying in-work-benefits to EU migrants who have lived for less than four years in the UK. According to the Telegraph, even though while Tusk won't agree to this, he might agree to something called an "emergency brake." This would mean that if Britain could prove that its public services were under excessive strain it could temporarily stop paying in-work-benefits to EU migrants.
It would be less than what Cameron was asking for, but it would allow him to claim that he had fought hard and come away with something.
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