Wednesday

31st May 2023

British PM courts eastern EU states on welfare

British prime minister David Cameron met the leaders of four eastern European EU states on Thursday (17 december) to court favour for his plan to curb welfare rights for EU nationals.

The brief “charm offensive,” as one EU diplomat put it, was also like a “blitzkrieg,” because Cameron spent just 15 minutes with the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Cutting in-work benefits for EU citizens, including the tens of thousands of UK workers from the so-called Visegrad or V4 states, has become a political hot potato.

“You can not simply export a British political problem to another country,” one diplomat from the region said.

The British prime minister laid out his plans in what he called a “V5” meeting, and received a unanimous No on his welfare plan.

Sources familiar with the short, non-confrontational discussion say Cameron explored areas for compromise.

Sources said no specifics were discussed. But Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban later said Cameron put forward potential solutions on the most UK-sensitive issues, such as child benefits and marriages of convienience.

The “ideas are a good basis for discussion,” Orban said.

Other sources said the V4 is open to cracking down on welfare cheats and indexing child benefit to real living costs. But they reject a four-year freeze on in-work benefits for EU nationals as “discriminatory.”

Cameron will visit Budapest on 7 January. He is due in Prague before the next EU summit, in February. He went to Warsaw earlier in December.

Treaty change

Orban also said he supports enshrining UK reform demands in an EU treaty change.

The idea was previously unpopular. German chancellor Angela Merkel, on Thursday, also said it’s possible to accomodate Cameron’s treaty request.

But for Orban, Cameron’s reform proposals are not radical enough.

Orban said treaty change is better sooner rather than later. “We should confront the structure - how we run the EU with 28 countries is not appropriate, and was not reformed, and we should discuss it openly,” he said.

Sensitivities

Since joining the EU in 2004, many from the V4 countries have looked for work in the UK, with Poles being the most mobile.

According to official data, 688,000 Poles live in Britain, making them the second-largest overseas-born group after those born in India.

Many of those working in the UK are voters of the new ruling party in Poland, the nationalistic Law and Justice Party, which is expected to protect their welfare interests.

There has also been a surge in the number of Hungarians living and working in the UK since 2010.

The Hungarian-born population rose from 13,000 in 2001 to an estimated estimated 79,000 in 2014, with 22,000 living London.

Orban said, on Friday, that according to estimates, Hungarian citizens working in Britain pay more into the welfare system that they take out.

“We are not a problematic country for the UK. We could come to an agreement easily,” he said.

He also shed light on eastern European sensitivity over being treated as second-class EU citizens.

Orban said Hungary’s problem with Cameron’s proposals is not on substance, but approach. “To consider Hungarians as migrants in Britain is painful to our heart, because we are European citizens,” he said.

UK talks: Cameron 'will have to face reality'

The British prime minister is to present his demands for EU reforms to the other leaders. Cuts in benefits for EU citizens and treaty change will face strong opposition.

Cameron to set out EU reforms in November

David Cameron is to outline his proposals for a reformed UK membership of the EU in early November and promises to quicken the pace of negotiations.

Eurosceptic MPs put Cameron under pressure

Conservative MPs have asked Cameron to let them campaign for an Out vote, with a former British defence minister saying the UK should leave the union.

MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024

"This will be the first time a member state that is under the Article 7 procedure will take over the rotating presidency of the council," French Green MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, the key lawmaker on Hungary, warned.

Column

What a Spanish novelist can teach us about communality

In a world where cultural clashes and sectarianism seems to be on the increase, Spanish novelist Javier Cercas (b.1962) takes the opposite approach. He cherishes both life in the big city and in the countryside.

Opinion

Poland and Hungary's ugly divorce over Ukraine

What started in 2015 as a 'friends-with-benefits' relationship between Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, for Hungary and Poland, is ending in disgust and enmity — which will not be overcome until both leaders leave.

Latest News

  1. Germany unsure if Orbán fit to be 'EU president'
  2. EU Parliament chief given report on MEP abuse 30 weeks before sanction
  3. EU clashes over protection of workers exposed to asbestos
  4. EU to blacklist nine Russians over jailing of dissident
  5. Russia-Ukraine relations the Year After the war
  6. Why creating a new legal class of 'climate refugees' is a bad idea
  7. Equatorial Guinea: a 'tough nut' for the EU
  8. New EU ethics body and Moldova conference This WEEK

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Sustainable Finance CentreJoin CEE Sustainable Finance Summit, 15 – 19 May 2023, high-level event for finance & business
  2. ICLEISeven actionable measures to make food procurement in Europe more sustainable
  3. World BankWorld Bank Report Highlights Role of Human Development for a Successful Green Transition in Europe
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic summit to step up the fight against food loss and waste
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersThink-tank: Strengthen co-operation around tech giants’ influence in the Nordics
  6. EFBWWEFBWW calls for the EC to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us