EU, UK may ink deal in February to prevent Brexit

PanARMENIAN.Net - The man running negotiations with Britain to keep it in the European Union said leaders could seal a deal in February but warned David Cameron that a central demand to curb immigration may be asking too much, Reuters reports.

Donald Tusk, who next week chairs the first detailed talks on the issue between the British Prime Minister and all his 27 peers, sent EU leaders a progress report a month after Cameron laid out four sets of reforms he wants if he is to campaign for continued EU membership in a referendum due within two years.

"We have made good progress," the European Council president said in a letter that contained few surprises. "We ... have to overcome the substantial political differences that we still have on the issue of social benefits and free movement." After next week's summit, he added: "We should be able to prepare a concrete proposal to be finally adopted in February."

Many governments are willing to make changes to keep Britain in the Union. Tusk said the main stumbling block was Cameron's pledge to cut immigration to Britain by denying benefits to workers from other EU states for four years after they arrive.

Anti-EU campaigners said Tusk's letter showed Cameron would secure little of consequence from Brussels. But the prime minister's office said he would stick with a proposal that many leaders, especially in the EU's poorer east, say would mean illegal discrimination and denying a fundamental freedom to EU citizens.

In particular, Tusk said changes to social benefit rules are "the most delicate" of Cameron's four reform "baskets". The former Polish premier noted support for fighting welfare abuses and a possibility of reducing what Britain pays in child benefit to workers whose children live in poorer countries.