Press

"The worsening international backdrop has taken the wind out of the eurozone's sails," said Simon Tilford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, a London think-tank. Mr Tilford said there is currently little risk of recession in the eurozone, but added that global growth appears to be slowing before Europe's recovery gained any vigor. "The problem is the eurozone never really recovered from the previous downturn," he said, referring to Europe's long debt crisis in recent years.
 

Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-EU think-tank, agreed the changes were largely cosmetic and designed to pander to the sensitivities of core-Europe. "The euro theologians in France and elsewhere have got the text to reassert the fiction that every country bar the UK and Denmark is on its way towards the euro," he said.

"Getting treaty change on the in-work benefits brake is crucial for Cameron because he will almost certainly be challenged before the European Court of Justice on this, given that some will claim it is discriminatory. He needs treaty change and the Poles are pivotal on this," Charles Grant said.

A draft deal for changes to Britain's relationship with the EU has been published and it could be finalised at a Brussels summit later this month. "I think he is in a quite difficult political situation, and that is because he made the most specific demands in the area that's most difficult to convince the other member states to agree and that's benefits for migrants," said John Springford of think-tank the Centre for European Reform. 

"As the text currently stands, the safeguard mechanism on benefits may be challenged in the courts," said Charles Grant, of the Centre for European Reform. "Cameron needs to secure a promise that this mechanism will be included in the treaties when they are next changed. It is crucial that he finds a way of persuading the Poles to agree."

"I'm a bit hesitant to give the renegotiation too much weight, the reason being that the changes Cameron can secure are relatively minor," Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the CER told DW."I think the results of the renegotiation matter only insofar as they can be portrayed as a success. Cameron and his advisers will of course claim that he has secured a good result, while the die-hard euroskeptics will say the opposite."

Agata Gostyńska, EU affairs analyst at the Centre for European Reform, said Poland had to show resistance because being seen as too accommodating risked backfiring with domestic opinion. "For the moment it seems there is enough flexibility in the text for both to claim some victories. But the devil is in the details, and what Cameron and Szydlo will be discussing."