UK to use Merkel’s visit to enact reforms to EU

International (IraqiNews.com) Britain said that it planned to use a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel this week to try to persuade Berlin to support measures to discourage people from moving within the European Union to tap welfare benefits.

If re-elected next year, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to try to reform the EU before giving Britons an in/out membership referendum by the end of 2017 amid widespread public skepticism about the bloc.

Trailing in the polls, Cameron has said he wants to eventually restrict migrants from poorer EU states relocating to richer ones like Britain to take advantage of its comparatively more generous welfare system, practice British politicians have dubbed “welfare shopping”.

Cameron has suggested possibly capping the annual number of EU migrants allowed to enter Britain each year or withholding full freedom of movement rights until a new EU member state achieves a certain gross domestic product per head.

Such ideas are part of his overall plan to shake up the bloc, full details of which he has yet to disclose.

On Sunday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the government hoped to use Merkel’s visit on Thursday to discuss enacting such reforms to the EU.

“I’m sure these subjects will come up. Germany also has strict benefit rules. Germany doesn’t want its benefit system to be abused. I think again with Germany we have a lot of common ground on that,” Hague concluded.