RIGA, Latvia—U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron will
visit Berlin and Paris next week for talks, a government official
said, as he vowed to start talks on European Union reforms "in
earnest" Friday on the sidelines of an EU leaders summit in
Riga.
In a speech on Thursday, Mr. Cameron said limiting migration to
the U.K. from within the European Union through welfare-payment
changes will be an "absolute requirement," as he embarks on
negotiations to deliver on a pledge to reform the U.K.'s
relationship with Brussels.
Mr. Cameron reiterated that changes to welfare entitlements
would be a red line for his negotiations. He has promised to secure
reforms and then hold a referendum on whether the U.K. should leave
the EU before the end of 2017.
Speaking on arrival at the Riga summit, which brings together
leaders from the EU and its eastern partners, Mr. Cameron warned
that his government's negotiations with the bloc wouldn't be
easy.
"All I'd say is that there will be ups and downs. You'll hear
one day this is possible and the next day, something else is
impossible," he told reporters. "But one thing throughout all of
this that will be constant, is my determination to deliver for the
British people reform of the EU, so they get a proper choice in the
referendum that we'll hold...before the end of 2017."
U.K. officials said Mr. Cameron will meet a number of EU leaders
in Riga. He held a short discussion Friday morning with the Polish
prime minister, whose country has seen some of the biggest numbers
of people move to work in the U.K. since it joined the bloc in
2004.
He will also hold discussions with the leaders of Hungary and
Sweden and will meet European Council President Donald Tusk, who
will be formally in charge of negotiations on EU reforms, in
Brussels.
Friday's meetings will be followed by meetings with the French
and German leaders toward the end of next week. European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday he may meet with the
British prime minister early next week.
Berlin will play a crucial role in Britain's bid to win back
powers. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already held talks with
Mr. Cameron on the issue before May's general election and Mr.
Cameron will face a huge challenge if the German government, by far
the most influential in the bloc right now, is set against his
proposals.
The prime minister has made immigration a key plank of his
reform efforts. Mr. Cameron has said he wants the U.K. to remain in
a reformed EU.
In his speech Thursday, Mr. Cameron said he supported freedom of
movement within the EU. But he added he wasn't alone in arguing
that there needed to be a change in the system to allay concerns
that national welfare systems could provide an "unintended
additional incentive for large migratory movements."
However, Mr. Cameron's push for reform has been met with a cool
response in Riga so far.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Friday morning that
freedom of movement within the bloc was "the core value" of the
EU.
"In Europe, we always try to find the solutions" to
disagreements, she said but warned that everyone must be
"consensual"— not just Mr. Cameron's European
partners.
Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas said Thursday he was open
to discussing Britain's ideas, but wasn't willing to "lose or even
have less of" basic EU freedoms.
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said she sincerely
hopes to find "good solutions for Britain," but refused to engage
on the option of a change to EU basic treaties—one way of
handing the U.K. back some EU powers.
"First of all, we have to listen to what Mr. Cameron has to say
about what kind of changes they want to achieve and then we will
take it from there."
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Nicholas
Winning at nick.winning@wsj.com
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