19 Feb 2016

Sleepless nights and bun fights: timetable of the EU negotiations

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David Cameron is having a chat with Donald Tusk at 11.45 this morning to see if there’s been enough progress to have the plenary session at 13.30 and seal the deal. It will be a challenge as the conversations got squeezed last night by a dinner debate on migration issues that was meant to wrap up around 22.00 but actually went on until 02.30.

They have time to make up and officials didn’t get to glimpse their beds, keeping up the detailed work on bringing various sides to an agreed text.

There must be a decent chance the 13.30 planned plenary doesn’t happen on time which could mean David Cameron doesn’t get home in time for a Cabinet today. There was a reluctance to have a really late Cabinet though, of course, there was a reluctance to have one before Monday at all not so long ago.

If David Cameron looks a little distracted in the room this morning it may not just be lack of sleep. He has a choreography to work on to launch the referendum campaign. Would Cabinet dissidents unveiling themselves take precedence in a news bulletin over his address to the nation? How does he make sure that he uses all the trappings of office to dominate coverage and get his message across? One inspired colleague said he should consider a Saturday Cabinet in Chequers as a good way of making sure there isn’t a bun fight outside the Downing Street as reporters try to get words from dissident ministers.

Some will argue that the PM actually launched the referendum campaign when the draft text was published two weeks ago and he rushed off to a factory photo op in Wiltshire to proclaim that he’d happily join the EU on the terms in the text. Last night he told the other 27 leaders that he couldn’t go home with a text weaker than the draft. Some of them might have thought that he should’ve considered that before rolling up his sleeved and proclaiming victory in front of UK cameras.

The Greek Prime Minister in the room last night echoed a thought he’d shared on the way in to this building: he said it beggared belief that they were discussing the meaning of “ever closer union” when the EU was falling down around their ears. The Portuguese Prime Minister decided to throw his newly mandated weight around a bit (he was elected in November) and talked about being “disappointed” with the UK bringing its own political tribulations into the room. Antonio Costa was putting down a marker that he doesn’t want to be pushed around even if he’s from one of the smaller economies. Britain always knew this was one new person on the block they hadn’t really had time to schmooze but may be hoping that Donald Tusk will do it for them behind the scenes.

Chancellor Merkel, diminished at home but still a force in this place, said other leaders should be “generous.” The Irish Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, made David Cameron sound like a bit of a hard luck case in his supportive intervention. He said that Mr Cameron faced a divided Cabinet, a tough referendum,

The remaining differences are what they were yesterday: what will be put in actual treaties whenever they are next drafted (including a new special status for the UK somehow commemorated or enshrined, protections for the City of London too), child benefit curbs (amazingly amounting to probably less than £30m – small change in Treasury terms which the Chancellor wouldn’t normally even worry had slipped out of his back pocket), the duration of the “emergency brake” on in work benefits.

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