German Chancellor Angela Merkel met British Prime Minister David Cameron in London on Wednesday for what were expected to be tough talks on the EU’s hotly contested budget.
Merkel and Cameron shook hands and posed briefly for photographers by the door of 10 Downing Street, the British premier’s official residence, before they went inside for a working dinner.
Cameron is set to press Merkel to back a freeze in the trillion-euro 2014-2020 budget, having threatened to veto any rise in spending at a summit in Brussels at the end of the month.
The British premier, who returned from a trip to the Middle East earlier on Wednesday, said he would make a “very robust and strong argument” for a deal in his country’s interests.
“I have always wanted at best a cut, at worst a freeze,” he said ahead of the meeting. “I feel I am in there fighting for Europe’s taxpayers, particularly British taxpayers.”
Cameron said Merkel was one of a group of European leaders who signed a letter in 2010 backing a freeze, adding that the arguments for doing so were even more compelling now.
Germany’s push for ever-greater EU unification to combat the eurozone debt crisis irks many Britons, who resent what they see as an increasingly intrusive — and costly — role taken by Brussels in national life.
The issue is putting Cameron under pressure too.
He suffered a humiliating defeat in a non-binding parliamentary vote last week calling for a cut in European Union spending, while eurosceptics in his Conservative Party are pushing for a referendum on EU membership.
But in a speech to European lawmakers in Brussels earlier Wednesday, Merkel said she wanted a strong Britain in Europe.
She reacted forcefully to a call by a leading British eurosceptic European lawmaker, Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party, for an “amicable divorce” between London and Brussels.
“I want to have a strong UK in the EU, let me make that absolutely clear,” the German chancellor said.
“I cannot imagine that the UK would not be part of Europe,” Merkel said, recalling Britain’s role in ending Nazi rule in Germany in 1945. “I think it is also good for the UK to be in Europe.”
Merkel in Britain for tough budget talks with Cameron
