British Prime Minister David Cameron sought to push forward his campaign for changes to the EU during a visit to Germany yesterday, saying that his proposals would benefit the EU, as well as Britain.
Cameron was in the Alps for a meeting of the Christian Social Union, the Bavaria-only sister party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.
He arrived on Wednesday evening, when Merkel was also there.
Photo: Reuters
Cameron has committed to holding a referendum on Britain’s EU membership by the end of next year. Before that, he is seeking a new deal for Britain, most controversially including welfare limits for other EU nationals intended to control migration. He hopes to seal a deal at an EU summit next month and to hold the referendum later this year.
“The problems in the EU that we are trying to fix are problems for Germany and other European partners too,” Cameron wrote in an op-ed for German daily Bild.
The changes he wants “will benefit the EU too, and Germany can help deliver them,” he said in the article.
“We want to stop people taking out from a welfare system without contributing to it first,” Cameron wrote. “Like Germany, Britain believes in the principle of free movement of workers. But that should not mean the current freedom to claim all benefits from day one and that’s why I’ve proposed restricting this for the first four years.”
Critics of the plan say it would harm the EU’s central tenets of non-discrimination between EU citizens and freedom of movement between member states.
Cameron wants the EU to cut bureaucracy and shift more powers from Brussels to member states.
He is also seeking guarantees that Britain will be protected from closer EU political integration and from economic decisions made by the 19 EU members that use the euro currency.
Merkel on Wednesday called for work toward “decisions that could lead, out of our own interest, to getting a sensible package so that Great Britain can remain part of the EU.”
Cameron is later expected to travel to Hungary for talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Additional reporting by AFP
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not