Lack of allies forces David Cameron retreat on EU changes

 
'Red line': Witold Sobków said Poland had 'no appetite for treaty change' (Picture: Alex Lentati)
Alex Lentati
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David Cameron faces having to retreat on his call for treaty change to reshape Britain’s EU membership after the Polish ambassador to London warned there was “no appetite anywhere” for it.

German and France are already understood to have struck a secret deal to oppose treaty change for greater eurozone integration, a stance believed to apply also to the UK’s renegotiation attempt.

British hopes of being able to rely on traditional EU allies, such as Poland, also appeared to have been dashed despite the Government insisting treaty change was needed, including to limit benefits for migrant workers.

Speaking to The Standard, Poland’s ambassador to London Witold Sobków said: “There is no appetite for treaty change anywhere. It’s not just Poland.”

This “red line” for Warsaw, along with another on welfare restrictions not “discriminating” against Polish citizens, was laid out to Mr Cameron in talks with Poland’s Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz last week.

But Poland is keen to help the UK to find “solutions” to keep it in the EU, possibly through reforms using secondary legislation and protocols in areas of concern including being freed from “ever closer union”, protecting EU countries outside the eurozone and powers for national parliaments.

While the broad areas of Mr Cameron’s demands are known in European capitals, EU leaders are waiting for more details so lawyers and diplomats can seek to work out deals.

“It would be helpful to get a list of concrete proposals, very precise proposals, and then we could sit and talk about it,” said Mr Sobków, who expects this to happen after an upcoming EU summit.

“In every negotiation, we can find some compromises,” he said.

“But for us no treaty changes and free movement of people is sacrosanct.”

On Mr Cameron’s proposals to restrict for four years in-work benefits for EU migrants, Poland and Britain seem far apart.

But Mr Sobków appeared to suggest that if, for example, benefit time limits applied to British citizens returning to the UK after living abroad, a “non-discriminatory” compromise might be achievable.

He was dismissive of claims that Polish men and women are attracted to Britain because of its welfare system.

“People from Poland who come here to work, from morning to night, have no idea about the system of benefits, so when they leave Poland, they do not leave Poland to claim benefits,” he said.

They may have heard through family or friends that in certain respects, “life is much easier” in the UK, for example the NHS is “very generous”.

But the British health and benefits system were not a “primary motivation” for coming here.

As for the issue of EU migrants claiming child benefit for children back in their home country, Mr Sobków believes this has been “overblown”, with the numbers concerned “negligible”, with about 23,000 in Poland, compared to hundreds of thousands of Polish workers in the UK.

“If we paid (Polish) benefits to their children in Poland, we would subsidize British taxpayers more or less,” he added.

The perception of Poles mainly working in coffee and fast-food outlets, or picking fruit, was outdated.

Many of his citizens, even if they initially took low-paid work on their arrival, were determined to “climb the ladder” into better paid jobs, linked to their professional studies, and often managerial.

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