BRUSSELS (AP) – British Prime Minister David Cameron says he’s confident the European Union will agree to the reforms he is seeking next year, indicating he may call a referendum on Britain’s membership well before his self-imposed end-of-2017 deadline.
Cameron spoke Friday after a two-day summit at which he outlined Britain’s demands for reform of the 28-nation bloc. His most contentious goal is to reduce immigration from other EU nations by barring migrants from receiving some benefits until they have been in Britain for four years.
Britain claims its schools, hospitals and welfare system have been strained by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Eastern Europe over the last decade. But Cameron’s proposed welfare curb is strongly opposed by some other EU leaders, who see it as violating the fundamental principle of free movement among the bloc’s member states.
Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said Cameron’s benefits-limiting proposals “are not acceptable to Poland.”
“We are open to discussion and compromise,” she said. “But today many well-educated Polish people live in the U.K. and work there and are building the GDP of Great Britain.”