Cameron’s deal is more than it seems by Charles Grant
The deal on EU reform won by David Cameron on February 19th will not change the fundamentals of how the EU works. So it is not surprising that it has failed to shift British public opinion in favour of EU membership. But this ‘decision of the heads of state or government’ is far from irrelevant and shows that the EU is changing in at least three ways. Even if the British vote to leave the EU on June 23rd – thereby rendering the decision void – the thinking behind it will not be forgotten. The least significant change concerns welfare benefits. Cameron won both an ‘emergency brake’ allowing a government to limit in-work benefits for EU migrants, and new rules on payments to migrants’ children living in other member-states. To justify these innovations, the decision extends recent jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice, which had curtailed the access of unemployed migrants to benefits; it implies that the right to free movement within the EU does not mean free access to the welfare systems of host countries. The text says that benefits may be limited if high immigration puts pressure on social security systems, labour markets or public services. In the event of Brexit, such limitations on benefits are likely to continue, since they suit many member-states.
Image: © European Union
Two other changes are more interesting. The section on sovereignty enhances the special status already enjoyed by Britain. The UK has optouts from the Schengen agreement and the euro. It chooses whether to join justice and home affairs measures (and in 2014 withdrew from most of the ones it had previously signed up to). A protocol
of the Lisbon treaty insulates Britain from the effects of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. And February’s decision promises a treaty change to state that “the UK…is not committed to further political integration into the EU…The references to ever closer union do not apply to the UK.” But this section affects all the member-states. It says that that ever closer union cannot be used to extend the powers of the EU, or to prevent powers being handed back to member-states. “The references to ever closer union among the peoples are therefore compatible with different paths of integration being available for different member-states and do not compel all memberstates to aim for a common destination.” These words merely describe reality; the various members have long had very different ideas of where they want the EU to go. But the text infuriates true believers in a federal EU. Andrew Duff, a former British MEP, responded: “For the rest of the EU, the decision means the end of an implied common goal. Suddenly it has become acceptable if not respectable for states to hold different concepts of the finalité politique…The EU is left with its first concrete instance of political