Statements by Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), Gabriele ZIMMER (GUE/NGL, DE), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, UK),Rebecca HARMS (Greens/EFA, DE) Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE) and Giovanni PITTELLA (S&D, IT) on the Ongoing UK negotiations, during the EP plenary session in Strasbourg.

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

referendum on EU membership (T)

statement

Strasbourg

EU - United Kingdom (T)

WEBER, Manfred (EPP, DE)

PITTELLA, Gianni (S&D, IT)

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

ZIMMER, Gabriele (GUE/NGL, DE)

HARMS, Rebecca (Greens/EFA, DE)

Ongoing UK negotiations: statements by EP political group leaders

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/18606682/I115827Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

Opening of the press conference by the S&amp;D group, Strasbourg, France

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Giovanni PITTELLA (S&amp;D, IT), (On migration and the hopes that the donor conference for Syria in London will bring a positive impact) We need to understand how to manage this phenomenon with our own strength with our own capacity and our own intelligence. And I trust that with the negotiations in London we will have a positive result and we will manage to reach our fundamental objective which is to keep the UK in the EU.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Giovanni PITTELLA (S&amp;D, IT), Unfortunately I had not had the chance to read the document yet, I will be able to answer your question when I have read the document. There will definitively be a debate in my group before the European Council meeting on the 16th.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, UK), "If the European Council is considering itself competent to make promises on future legislative commitments to the UK without consulting the European Parliament, the European Parliament will not consider itself bound by those promises. If there is a promise to review certain aspects of the legislation applying to free movement of workers, in one or the other way, the Council will not be certain of having a majority in the Parliament".

SOUNDBITE (German), Rebecca HARMS (Greens/EFA, DE), "I find quite amazing the request of Mr Cameron to have such a power over the decisions taken by the EU, with the right of veto and so on, while at the same time he wants to keep prerogatives and a free hand in certain areas. If this is agreed, there is a big question to be raised as how will the EU will continue to function".

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), "It's clear we are going to talk in the coming hours about the proposal by Mr Tusk to respond to the request of the British Government , and this afternoon the delegates of the Groups, together with President Schulz will prepare a position that the parliament is going to defend and express in the summit of the 18the of February".

SOUNDBITE (German), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), (EPP, DE), There should be a sensible co-existence, that has been improved in the proposals that have been tabled. Non-Euro countries have interests of course and with the current mechanism those can be taken into account better.

SOUNDBITE (German), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), The most difficult question is social aspects and freedom of movement in the EU. David CAMERON has negotiated hard on this, I'll say that once again, and the mechanism that we  have now will require two changes to legislative acts by the European Parliament. In the EPP group we want to make a constructive contribution to this process, and there's certainly need for discussion in the areas concerned, but we will take a positive approach to that. We want to get a solution and we think that it's a good basis.

SOUNDBITE (German), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), What is decisive is that in the mechanism that has been designed, Europe will retain the right of initiative and assessment.The Commission has a key role to play, in this mechanism and can decide whether an emergency mechanism is necessary for the social security system or not.

SOUNDBITE (German), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), From a practical point of view it's going to be extremely difficult to get a majority in the Council of Ministers if 55% of the national parliaments reject a dossier.

SOUNDBITE (German), Gabriele ZIMMER (GUE/NGL, DE), Parliament needs to involved it's as simple as that. The parliament has been shut out of this process. We've been told that it's just technical adjustments that are going to be done over the weekend and parliament is going to simply take note of what is negotiated on the 17th and 18th of February.

SOUNDBITE (German), Gabriele ZIMMER (GUE/NGL, DE), It's clearly deliberate, it's clearly something the UK government wanted, CAMERON's line is that the European Parliament should have a subordinate role to the Member States institutions.