Prague, Feb 16 (CTK) – Prague can still see some problematic issues in the draft agreement on the EU reform, which Britain demands, concerning welfare benefits and the “emergency brake” rules, Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka told reporters after a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday.
He added that the agreement with Britain would yet be very complicated.
Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) reiterated on Tuesday that the Czech Republic would like Britain, which would hold a referendum on its EU membership, to stay in the Union. This is a question of the strategic importance and influence of Europe, and this is also why the Czech Republic wants to find a compromise, he added.
Prague wants to negotiate about the problematic points in the draft agreement, he noted.
“The problems concern the parameters of the interference in the welfare systems, in particular the indexation of child benefits, and the setting of parameters for this measure as well as for the so-called emergency brake,” Sobotka said.
There are still problems that have not been resolved, Tusk confirmed Sobotka’s words.
“In the Czech Republic as well as in the other Visegrad countries, the issue of child benefits continues to be the most sensitive,” Tusk said.
The V4 opinions are strong and fully unambiguous, he said.
Tusk at the same time expressed his conviction that the proposed compromise was just and balanced. He thanked Sobotka for his constructive position at the helm of the V4 group, which Prague is chairing now.
The EU countries’ citizens working in Britain are entitled to child benefits even though their children live in their homeland. However, under the draft agreement, Britain could lower the benefits in accordance to the living standards in the foreign workers’ homeland.
The “emergency brake” should enable Britain to restrict the payment of social benefits to the people who are not British citizens if the British welfare system faced an unsustainable pressure.
Sobotka also informed Tusk about the migration summit of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, with the participation of Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, which had expressed support for intensified aid to Macedonia and Bulgaria in the protection of their borders.
The Visegrad Four countries agreed on Monday on their joint position on the British demands for the EU reform in four areas: competitiveness, sovereignty, an equal position of the member states and the free movement of people.
