Cameron says landmark deal gives UK special status in EU

PanARMENIAN.Net - Prime Minister David Cameron hailed a landmark deal on Friday, Feb 19, he said gave Britain "special status" in the European Union and pledged to campaign heart and soul to stay in the EU at a deeply uncertain referendum expected in June.

At a summit that ran into overtime, EU leaders agreed unanimously on a package of measures aimed at keeping Britain in the 28-nation bloc to avoid a potentially disastrous divorce.

Their legally binding decision granted Britain an explicit exemption from the founding goal of "ever closer union", offered concessions on the welfare rights of migrant workers and safeguards for the City of London financial center.

The British prime minister said he had achieved all his main negotiating aims and would recommend the agreement to his cabinet on Saturday, firing the starting gun on a fierce referendum campaign on Britain's future membership of the bloc.

"I believe we are stronger, safer and better off inside a reformed European Union," he told a news conference. "And that is why I will be campaigning with all my heart and soul to persuade the British people to remain in the reformed European union that we have secured today."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of Britain's strongest allies in Europe, said: "We believe that with this we have given David Cameron a package with which he can campaign in Britain for Britain to stay in the European Union."

The Visegrad Group, comprising Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, said the deal reflected their key demands.

Britain is already the EU's most semi-detached member, having opted out of joining the euro single currency, the Schengen zone of passport-free travel and many areas of police and judicial cooperation. Summit chairman Donald Tusk said Britain had long had a special status inside the bloc.