Cameron floats new EU migration plans

Prime Minister David Cameron's EU tightrope walk continues: in Friday's keynote speech, he tried to offer tougher policies on immigration, while simultaneously straining not to sound like firebrand election rivals UKIP.

Cameron's main proposal was that EU migrants should not qualify for state benefits during their first four years in Britain - he said he would suggest implementing the rules across the entire bloc, rather than just the UK.

"I will insist that, in the future, those who want to claim tax credits and child benefits, must live here for a minimum of four years," Cameron said, acknowledging that these proposals would probably require alterations to the EU's treaties.

"There's a debate in Europe about exactly which bits of legislation, which bits of the treaty you'll need to change, but there's no doubt this package as a whole will require some treaty change and I'm confident we can negotiate that," Cameron said.

No outright cap mentioned

Cameron has pledged a national "in/out" referendum on EU membership for 2017, if he wins reelection next year, pledging to first negotiate improved terms in Brussels and then campaign for continued membership.

"If I succeed, I will, as I have said, campaign to keep this country in a reformed EU," the Conservative prime minister said. "If our concerns fall on deaf ears and we cannot put our relationship with the EU on a better footing, then of course I rule nothing out."

The British prime minister made no explicit mention of a numerical cap on EU migrants per year, an idea mooted in the past that encountered outright rejection from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Merkel declined to comment on Cameron's speech soon after he delivered it on Friday. The European Commission issued a statement saying that the EU would be ready to discuss Cameron's proposals "calmly and prudently."

'An island nation, but never an insular one'

Facing the sudden rise of the explicitly anti-EU, anti-immigration United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), Cameron and his Conservatives have been placed in something of a bind on EU and immigration policies.

UKIP won more seats than any other British party at the European Parliament in elections this May, and has more recently claimed its first two seats at Westminster. In both cases, UKIP won at by-elections after Tory MPs defected to UKIP and then retained their seats. Britain votes in general elections next May.

Cameron sought during his speech in the likely election battleground of Rocester to both stress his wish for reform while simultaneously criticizing UKIP's stance. At one point he criticized those in Britain hoping to "pull up the drawbridge, retreat from the world and just shut off immigration altogether," albeit without ever mentioning UKIP by name.

"Yes, Britain is an island nation, but we've never been an insular one," Cameron said, adding that the country "must confront this dangerous and misguided view that our nation can somehow withdraw from the world and all will be well."

Cameron outlined three broad immigration stances: the "complacent view" that no changes were necessary, UKIP's shut-up-shop mantra, and then his third way seeking more controls on the process. Cameron had campaigned on a pledge of reducing net migration into the UK during the 2010 election campaign, but has not been able to deliver. Figures released on Thursday showed 228,000 EU citizens had moved to Britain in June alone, the highest monthly figure on record. The prime minister said, however, that non-EU immigration had gone down since he took office.

'Magnetic destination' - with election looming

Polls suggest that immigration is voters' top concern ahead of the UK general elections, but Cameron sought to turn the issue around, saying that the high numbers of arrivals in Britain demonstrated that the country was a "magnetic destination."

Repeatedly mentioning that the UK was currently the EU and the G7's fastest-growing economy, Cameron said that Britain was "currently the jobs factory of Europe: unemployment is tumbling, and is now about half the level that it is in France, and a quarter of the level it is in Spain."

"It's a tribute to Britain that so many people want to come here, that has not always been the case," he said.

As well as eligibility for welfare payments, Cameron also suggested tougher rules on "sham marriages," saying he wanted more stringent rules for EU migrants seeking to move the UK with a spouse from outside the European Union. Cameron said that, currently, it was harder for a British citizen to bring their foreign spouse into the country than it would be for a European national.

msh/shs (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)