Exclusion from the clause of the Treaties which establishes participation in an ever closer Union, recognition of a multi-currency single market, a stronger role for individual national parliaments and above all the four-year suspension of access to welfare for non-English citizens arriving in the United Kingdom. These were the requests that David Cameron had made in Brussels to prevent Great Britain from leaving the EU. The draft agreement presented this morning by the President of the European Council Donald Tusk seems to welcome almost all of them, removing the specter of Brexit.
The text will now have to be discussed with the other member countries before approval which could take place during the EU summit scheduled for mid-February. But the most important obstacle to overcome will be the popular referendum which will in all probability be held next June, the outcome of which becomes more uncertain day by day.
The draft has been met with numerous criticisms, particularly concerning the concessions that Brussels intends to make on the free movement of people. According to the provisions of the document, the EU Commission will have to present a provision aimed at amending the current Community legislation in order to allow a country to block the granting of social benefits to a citizen of a country of the Union for a maximum of four years, as requested by Cameron during the negotiations. According to the text published today, London would be in the "exceptional situation" to apply the emergency brake.
Tusk's proposal also provides that the national parliaments of at least 16 out of 28 countries will have the ability to request the revision of a legislative proposal from the Commission within 12 weeks of submission
On the currency front, the countries excluded from the monetary union will have the possibility of requesting the revision of a legislative text to be applied to the euro area, in the event that it proves to be contrary to their interests.
The proposal envisages granting more 'voice' to the states that have not adopted the single currency, but the latteri will not have the possibility to veto the effective functioning of the banking union or on the future integration of the euro area.
The solutions proposed by Tusk were welcomed by British Prime Minister David Cameron: "The document on EU renegotiation shows real progress in all four areas in which the United Kingdom has proposed changes, but there is still work to do", he said. said Cameron.
