Cameron faces EU 'crunch time' in Brussels and London

British PM David Cameron i is holding final pre-summit talks in Brussels on Tuesday (16 January) before facing down his own anti-EU ministers on Friday.

The UK leader will hold talks with European Parliament chief Martin Schulz i and with the “sherpas” or lead negotiators of the three main political groups.

Veteran German MEP Elmar Brok i is representing the centre-right EPP group. Italian socialist Roberto Gualtieri i is speaking for the centre-left S&D, while former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt i will speak for the liberal Alde faction.

Cameron will also meet European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker i.

But he ducked out of a full-scale meeting of EU parliament group leaders.

His office cited “time constraints”, but EP sources said he wanted to avoid a clash with one of his popular antagonists - Nigel Farage i, the British head of the eurosceptic EFDD group. He also wanted to avoid Marine Le Pen i, the French head of the far-right ENF faction.

The EU assembly has no direct role in his renegotiation of Britain’s EU membership terms.

But it must ratify new provisions on EU workers’ rights and could embarrass the British PM by tabling amendments to any UK deal on curbing welfare rights.

Cameron, who has been touring EU capitals in the run-up to Thursday’s summit, also met French leader Francois Hollande i in Paris for one hour on Monday.

A British spokesman said their talks yielded “a firm basis to reach agreement at this week's summit”.

A French official told the Reuters news agency: “There's a political will to conclude in Brussels.”

But the official added: “There’s still work to be done, especially on economic governance.”

The comments refer to British demands to protect the City of London from financial decisions by the 19 euro-using EU states, which are heading down the path of deeper integration.

Meanwhile, EU Council chief Donald Tusk i, also on Monday, continued his own referendum tour.

He said after meeting Romanian president Klaus Iohannis in Bucharest that “positions harden, as we get closer to crunch time”.

“The risk of [an EU] break-up is real because this process is indeed very fragile. Handle with care. What is broken cannot be mended,” he said.

Outstanding issues

Cameron is close to securing Polish support for his welfare ideas, amid last-minute haggling on whether to index child benefit payments to British or local EU wage levels.

Juncker said on Monday: “I do think that these social welfare benefits have to continue to be applied to those already in Britain. For the incoming workers, this has to be seen. The indexation of the child benefit will be at the core of the discussions.”

But Tusk’s list of “outstanding political issues” extended to almost all the British demands.

“These include the questions of future treaty change, a so-called emergency brake for non-euro area countries, a safeguard mechanism on access to in-work benefits, and finally the notion of ever-closer union,” Tusk said.

The “crunch time,” in EU terms, will come at the summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.

If Cameron gets enough, he is expected to call the In/Out referendum in late June and to campaign for the UK to stay in.

'Gutless' jibe

But he’ll face his own crunch time when he gets back to London on Friday for a post-summit cabinet briefing.

Five of his ministers - Iain Duncan Smith, Chris Grayling, Priti Patel, Theresa Villiers i, and John Whittingdale - are hardened eurosceptics who want to start immediately campaigning for an Out vote.

But some key figures - home secretary Theresa May, justice secretary Michael Gove, and London mayor Boris Johnson - are said to be still on the fence.

Farage described Cameron’s decision to skip him and Le Pen as “gutless”.

The latest poll, by ComRes for ITV News, says 49 percent of British people will vote to stay in, while 41 percent want out.