Cameron stuck on ’emergency’ migrant brake

British prime minister struggles to reach deal after day of EU reform talks.

David Cameron said there’s “no deal done” on his EU reform plan after a meeting in Brussels on Friday with top European officials, but claimed they had made progress.

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The British prime minister held a “difficult but constructive meeting” with Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker over lunch as they negotiated the terms of Cameron’s most controversial demand: a four-year ban on in-work benefits for EU migrants.

Cameron and Juncker struggled to reach agreement on how long the UK could use an “emergency brake” that would activate the ban, according to an EU diplomat involved in the negotiations.

The British prime minister wants the brake to be activated immediately in the U.K. and remain in effect for a substantial period of time, the source said. The benefits ban aims to deter migrants from seeking jobs in the U.K.

The Commission is concerned that, if the brake is extended past an emergency period, it won’t be legally compatible within the EU treaties as an emergency mechanism. The EU currently guarantees freedom of movement of the bloc’s workers in a single market.

“They will be working on this over the weekend,” the official said Friday. “Cameron wants this to be a lasting solution, but the Commission sees it as a temporary option.”

European Council President Donald Tusk is expected to send Cameron’s draft plan to the other 27 EU countries on Monday ahead of the February 18 summit. Cameron followed the meetings with Junckerand  Schulz with a phone call with French President Francois Hollande. They discussed concerns over the non-eurozone voting rights, according to an official familiar with the call.

Another sticking point is a safety mechanism that would give non-eurozone countries a voice in decisions made by eurozone countries is still being discussed.

“The devil is in the details,” the diplomat said. “We want to make sure we’re not giving the British a veto.”

The Commission did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier in the day, Cameron told BBC Scotland that the EU deal is “not strong enough yet.”

“There’s still a long way to go,” Cameron said after the meeting. “But one instance of progress is that for a long time I’ve said we have got to have a system where you don’t get benefits out of the system until you pay in to our system.”

“There’s now a proposal on the table,” Cameron said. “It’s not good enough, it needs more work, but we are making progress.”

Cameron wants to strike a deal at the February summit so that he can hold a referendum on the country’s membership in June, but he warned that he’s not convinced that will happen.

“I can’t be certain we’ll get there in February but I will work as hard as I can to deliver a good deal for the British people,” Cameron said.

Schulz said he’s feeling optimistic that there will be a deal by mid-February.

“Then we have to fight for a majority … first of all the U.K. government has to convince U.K. voters that the deal is a good one,” Schulz said.

This article was updated after the Cameron/Schulz meeting.