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Europe wary but weary of 'Brexit' threat

03 May 2015, 21:46 CET
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Europe wary but weary of 'Brexit' threat

David Cameron - Photo EU Council

(BRUSSELS) - People and governments across Europe are watching Britain's elections nervously, with the continent sending the message: we want you in the family but not at any price.

From Paris to Palermo and Berlin to Brussels, David Cameron's promise to hold an EU membership referendum if he is re-elected on May 7 has caused jitters.

Willingness to compromise on Britain's treaty change demands goes only so far, especially when it comes to free movement, a key principle of the 28-nation bloc.

"I would never sacrifice freedom of movement for them," Anna Norris Dzugosova, a 54-year-old Slovak woman married to a British man, told AFP.

Her husband Ted Norris, a former clerk in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain's parliament, said he was "appalled" by the growing "little islander" mentality in his homeland.

"If Britain wants to leave the EU then let them go their own way."

Britain's election is being particularly closely watched in the EU's newer eastern nations, from which hundreds of thousands of people have moved to Britain to find work since the bloc's immigration rules were relaxed a decade ago.

Cameron wants to change the rules governing both migration and the benefits that EU citizens living in Britain are entitled to receive.

But there is growing scepticism that Britons would actually vote for a so-called "Brexit" if Cameron holds his referendum as planned in 2017.

"We think that even if there is a referendum the British won't accept leaving the EU," said Pawel Machala, 43, a Polish technician who has worked as a railway maintenance worker in Britain since 2005.

He splits his time between Britain and Jaroslaw, southeast Poland, where his wife and child live and said fellow Poles working in Britain did not expect major restrictions on movement even if the UK does leave the EU.

There is also scepticism in Germany, Europe's political and economic powerhouse.

"I don't think the British will go through with this plan to the end. You mustn't underestimate Britain's dependence on continental Europe," said Ingo Speich, 38, an investment fund manager sitting at a Frankfurt restaurant.

Frankfurt and Paris are the cities that could benefit most if London's status as a financial hub suffered from an EU exit.

Speich travels to London twice a month for work and said that "if there were extra barriers for entry I would go to London less often."

- Brussels fears -

The prospect of a British exit is being taken very seriously in Brussels itself.

However annoying Britain has proved itself recently, there is general recognition that it is a key EU nation: the bloc's second biggest economy, one of its main military powers, a UN Security Council member and nuclear-armed NATO state.

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker appeared to hold out an olive branch last week by opening the possibility of treaty change on minor issues, although not on freedom of movement.

Yet in the Brussels bureaucratic bubble, it is no secret that many officials have been rubbed up the wrong way by Cameron and would prefer to see his Labour rival Ed Miliband win, thereby avoiding a referendum.

Cameron's tough stance has alienated many possible allies who could have helped him push through some of the reforms he wants, not least Germany's Angela Merkel, and appetite for compromise is limited.

"It is not up to the United Kingdom's partners to pay an excessive price," a French diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

If Cameron does win, the "Brexit" issue is set to dominate a European summit in June when he is expected to set out his demands in full.

Analysts agree with ordinary Europeans when they say they doubt Britain would leave.

"Whoever wins the elections there is a strong case for the UK to be part of Europe. I don't think there is a serious case for leaving Europe," Gregory Claeys of the Bruegel think-tank told AFP.

The referendum will likely come down to "immigration versus jobs", said Mats Persson, director of the Open Europe think-tank.

"Britain's relation with the EU is transactional, it is a cost-benefit analysis -- it is not emotional as in other places on the continent," he told a debate in Brussels this month.

And it is the personal links across the continent that any British exit would threaten.

"My son works in a bank in London and already has British nationality, but it would be more difficult for me to go there," said Evguenia Hristova, 56, a translator from Sofia, Bulgaria.

"The memory of the queues at the British embassy makes me tremble."

 


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