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Cameron heads for 'now or never' talks to keep Britain in EU

18 February 2016 04:10 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Britain Prime Minister David Cameron will hold 'now or never' talks on Thursday to keep Britain in the European Union, with the bloc's 28 leaders suggesting there are only a few obstacles left to a new membership deal, APA reports quoting Reuters.

With all sides underlining that there is still work to be done to reach agreement at an EU summit in Brussels, there is also broad consensus that if the bloc fails to agree, they may never come up with a deal to help keep Britain from leaving.

Cameron is keen to end the week in Brussels with a deal that he can hail as a victory and then start campaigning to keep Britain inside the bloc before a referendum most officials expect will be held in late June.

"I think there is an appetite at all levels to try and get there and take as long as it takes us to get there," said a senior EU diplomat of the two-day summit which ends on Friday.

"The mood around town is that people think that if we don't get it solved now, we're never going to solve it."

Cameron, struggling to sell a deal to an increasingly skeptical British public and many in his own Conservative Party, has spent weeks touring European capitals to secure a deal, hold a referendum and put to rest the divisions over Europe that have dogged his party for years.

He has called for reform in four areas: measures to curb migration, safeguards to protect London's financial district from decisions binding the 19 members using the euro currency, for Britain to be excluded from "ever closer union" and for greater competition in the bloc.

EU officials have said there are still worries about whether some of Britain's demands will set a precedent, leading other countries to demand changes to their membership agreements.

And among the details, there will be debate over the wording of the safeguards for London's financial sector, on any commitment to future amendments of the bloc's founding treaties and on how long Britain can apply a measure to curb welfare payments for low-paid EU workers.