U.K's Cameron: EU exit vote 'carefully thought out'
DAVOS, Switzerland — British Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday that his plan to hold a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union was "very carefully thought through" and it would be a disservice to the British people to ignore the issue.
The Conservative Party leader made the comments in a reply to a question by Paste BN after an address to business leaders and politicians at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"You don't do your country a service by pushing these issues to the margins," he said. "You either stay in an organization that has flaws and faults or just get out."
Cameron was speaking about his country's role in the world ahead of a key meeting of European leaders in Brussels next month, when he will seek to renegotiate key aspects of how the 28-nation EU conducts business and organizes itself and retains a level of independence from EU lawmakers in Brussels.
The meeting is a crucial step along the way to the referendum that he has promised to hold by 2017. Before the vote, Cameron is seeking EU reform in four areas. He outlined these in Davos on Thursday: competitiveness, no disadvantages for countries like the U.K. that don’t use the euro currency, sovereignty, and migration and welfare.
Cameron said that Britain lags behind the United States in technology and productivity, and he wanted to see “clear measures to cut bureaucracy and rule-making in Europe.”
As an example of why he was seeking reform, Cameron said that funds from Britain, non-eurozone member, were used toward Greece’s bailout last summer. He said clearer rules were needed so that countries that don't use the euro currency don’t suffer disadvantages.
He said change is also needed in the area of sovereignty. “Britain is a pretty independent country,” he said. “We’re an independent part of the European continent and we need to get that relationship right.”
Describing Britain as one of the most successful and diverse nations in the world, he said net migration into the country is 330,000 a year.
“It’s (migration) the British number one concern,” he said, adding that the free movement of labor among EU countries had increased pressure on the country's welfare system.
"That needs to change," he said.
Peter Kellner, president of market research firm YouGov, said this month that every poll since September last year has shown that the British public are evenly split on whether to leave the EU. The company’s average figures are that 51% want to remain in the EU and 49% want to leave.
Contributing: Jane Onyanga-Omara