British Prime Minister David Cameron has won Polish and Danish support for EU reforms that will prevent a “Brexit”. He is touring European countries before setting a date for a UK referendum on EU membership.
Cameron met with Poland’s influential government party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski on Friday, who gave his blessing to the UK’s proposed pact to curb welfare for new migrant workers from EU countries, AFP reported.
The proposals will allow British authorities to withhold in-work social security benefits for up to four years from EU citizens moving to Britain. The plans are controversial as Poland is the biggest source of Britain’s migrant labor force.
But Kaczynski insisted that British officials had guaranteed to preserve the rights of the estimated 600,000 Poles already working in the UK. Later on Friday, Cameron also received broad support for his reforms from Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen during a visit to Copenhagen.
“I support all the elements regarding welfare benefits,” said Rasmussen, whose center-right government needs the backing in parliament of the euroskeptic, anti-immigration Danish People’s Party.
The British leader traveled to the two capitals as part of a diplomatic tour of Europe to attempt to keep the UK in the EU after promising the British electorate that he would secure substantial reforms within the 28-member bloc.
