Factbox: Britain's EU demands, and how they might be handled

David Cameron met his EU counterparts on Friday for the first time since his re-election two weeks ago ensured that Britain will have a referendum in the next couple of years on quitting the bloc.

>>Reuters
Published : 23 May 2015, 07:35 AM
Updated : 23 May 2015, 07:36 AM

At an EU summit in Riga, Cameron repeated his intention to seek reforms in the Union before giving British voters a choice. Fellow leaders say they are willing to cooperate.
 
Looking at Cameron's election manifesto demands, here is how they might try to accommodate Cameron's requirements:
 
The relatively straightforward:
 
- reform the EU: "too big, too bossy, too bureaucratic"
 
- break down remaining barriers to trade in single market
 
- cut EU budget, focus EU spending on jobs and growth
 
Much of this is already in train. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, appointed by national leaders in November over Cameron's objections, has reshaped the EU executive, cut back on lawmaking and declared war on red tape.
 
A new set of initiatives is due from Juncker's deputy Frans Timmermans this week.
 
The EU budget is broadly fixed until 2020 but Juncker has set up an investment fund for jobs and growth.
 
He also plans an Energy Union, Digital Single Market and Capital Markets Union, removing national barriers to trading in areas of particular interest to British exporters.
 
He has pledged to avoid unnecessary interference. Much of this will be about perception as much as formal changes to EU rules.
 
- national control of defence, with NATO role protected
 
Member states have a veto on security issues and there is no move to change it.
 
- Britain will never join the euro zone
 
Britain has a longstanding opt-out from a treaty requirement that obliges all member states to work toward adopting the euro.
 
- national parliaments to work together to block EU laws
 
Parliaments won the right to force the Commission to review EU laws in 2009. The rule has not been much used and procedures could be altered to make it easier to apply. To give parliaments an outright veto over the Commission would be a harder legal task.
- longer wait for new EU states' citizens to work in UK
 
No new members are expected for some years and rules already exist to delay their citizens' rights to work in the EU.
 
In 2004, Britain chose to let Poles and others take up jobs in the UK immediately on accession. Most other states made them wait.
 
The do-able, with due flexibility
 
- protect single market access from euro zone integration
 
- safeguard Britain as global financial centre
 
The creation of a Banking Union and, in future, the Capital Markets Union being developed under Britain's EU Commissioner Jonathan Hill, go some way to ensuring the City of London and UK financial institutions remain on equal terms under EU regulation, even if Britain never adopts the euro.
 
EU judges in March told the European Central Bank it could not discriminate against non-euro zone clearing houses.
 
Germany favours tightening and clarifying euro zone rules in a new or revised treaty but agrees with France that it cannot be done by 2017 -- not least as both France and Germany have elections that year.
 
However, some form of inter-government EU commitment to protect British financial interests in a future euro treaty revision might be negotiable.
 
- end commitment to 'ever closer union'
 
This phrase in the preamble to the EU's basic treaty is anathema to British Eurosceptics, who see it as a commitment to eventual submission to a European super-state.
 
In fact, very few in the EU read it that way, and most would reject it if they did. The passage also says decisions should be taken at the most local level possible.
 
A year ago, leaders adopted a European Council conclusion, which has legal weight, responding to British concerns about the phrase by saying the wishes of states that do not integrate more deeply with the EU should be respected.
 
In the absence of a long and uncertain process of amending the treaty, some further binding declaration might be negotiated.
 
- reclaim power from Brussels
 
The demand is imprecise. France and others have said they do not favour granting Britain even more opt-outs from EU laws than it already enjoys.
 
On some areas of justice and home affairs policy, it opted in to common EU rules and could opt out again.
 
- scrap Britain's human rights act
 
Cameron wants to reshape how British courts implement the European Convention on Human Rights. This does not directly concern the EU but the separate Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
 
The EU, however, could be concerned if Britain were to deviate from the provisions of European human rights law.
 
The tricky area: free movement of labour
 
- no jobseekers' benefits for non-British EU citizens
 
- EU jobseekers deported if no job after six months
 
Free movement and equal treatment of workers from all EU states are basic rights enshrined in treaties. But that applies to people in work.
 
Britain has support from Germany and other wealthy states in seeking to curb abuse of welfare systems by jobless migrants.
 
Germany won an EU court case last year against a Romanian who judges ruled had no realistic chance of a job.
 
But other court rulings have favoured people genuinely seeking work.
 
Timmermans is working on a "migration package" of legislation by end-2015 that could address the issue of abuse of benefits.
 
- stronger power to deport EU criminals and prevent return
 
Britain, which has opted out of the EU's Schengen common border area, recently opted in to some elements of crime and justice legislation that offer more cooperation on this.
 
However, in general, powers must be used on a case-by-case basis.
 
- EU workers wait 4 years before tax credits, child benefit
 
- EU workers wait 4 years before being eligible for social housing
 
- no child benefit for migrants' children living outside UK
 
- harder for EU immigrants to bring non-EU spouses to UK
 
Rules that discriminate against EU workers compared to UK citizens risk being challenged in EU courts, though some British officials say other states get away with discrimination.
 
Eastern European states will resist new rules that hurt their people's freedom to move in search of better-paid work.
 
Big powers do not want fundamental change to treaties and have urged Britain to avoid discrimination if it changes its welfare rules.