Draft EU deal waters down Cameron’s migrant plan

Donald Tusk’s draft proposals for Britain’s EU renegotiation are out – and the focus is on whether David Cameron has got what he was after on benefits. The settlement includes the ‘emergency brake’ on in-work benefits for migrants, which would allow Cameron to ‘limit the access’ to benefits for four years. But this limit is not an outright ban: instead, it would be a gradual increase in eligibility starting with a total ban at the start of someone’s employment followed by ‘gradually increasing access to such benefits to take account of the growing connection of the worker with the labour market of the host Member State’. The draft document spells it out as follows:

‘The limitation should be graduated from an initial complete exclusion but gradually increasing access to such benefits to take account of the growing connection of the worker with the labour market of the host Member State.’

Countries would also be able to pay child benefit to workers whose children remained in their home country at the level paid in the home country, which is also not the end to the payments that the Prime Minister proposed.