Brussels, 12/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - Emboldened by the result of the general election of 7 May, UK Prime Minister David Cameron could bring forward the date of the referendum to be held on the UK's continued membership of the EU to the summer or autumn of 2016 rather than 2017, according to a report in The Guardian on Monday 11 May.
This possibility, spoken of for a time in 2014, would mean Cameron would avoid the elections to be held in France and Germany in 2017 impacting on the referendum, according to sources quoted by the newspaper.
A parliamentary bill to approve the referendum will be included in the Queen's speech on 27 May, the newspaper continues. The Tories, it would appear, are looking to win a kind of protocol to be annexed to the European treaties providing a maximum number of concessions by the UK's European partners in a number of areas, in particular, with regard to the historic EU ambition of forging an ever-closer union, joining the single currency and ensuring that changes to the single market cannot be imposed on non-eurozone countries, tightening access to in-work and out-of-work benefits for EU migrants and increased powers for national parliaments to block EU legislation.
For the moment, Cameron has not put down any formal requests to the European Commission. June's European summit may provide the ideal opportunity to do so. While Cameron's plans may shorten the timescale and raise further questions over what it will be possible to achieve with regard to constitutional change in the short term, they will bring clarity to the situation more quickly, a European source has observed - and perhaps mean that it will be possible to move on more quickly, too. (Solenn Paulic)