On the edge: David Cameron’s EU renegotiation strategies

After promising the British public a referendum on whether to stay in the EU, David Cameron is currently trying to renegotiate the terms of the UK’s membership. His increasingly Eurosceptical party and a press that is often hostile towards the European Union makes the task a particularly challenging one. In this series of five essays, Frank Vibert, a Senior Visiting Fellow in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science, draws on his experience as a founder director of the European Policy Forum to analyse the five strands of Cameron’s renegotiation strategy. He concludes that – if he succeeds - the Prime Minister’s approach may lead member states and Brussels institutions to move away from their current strategy of stressing EU citizens’ rights, rather than their consent.