UK's Cameron: "We'll only do a deal if we get what Britain needs"

[thenews]

UK PM repeats himself upon returning to the talks "I'm gonna get back in there and do more work"

Good luck with that one Dave. Frankly I don't fancy your chances.

GBPUSD staging a bit of a recovery though as traders/ algo boxes continue to pull it around in rapid time.

[thenews]

Can anyone in Brussels put up David Cameron for the night? EU official tells leaders to book a hotels for the night as talks could go on into the weekend

• 15.00 GMT session postponed until dinner time
• Talks on UK deal still critical
• Leaders asked to book hotel rooms

[thenews]

UK Deal Over EU Membership Remains Illusive The UK's attempts to reach a deal with partners in the EU on how to reform its role inside the regional bloc were dragging into the afternoon on Friday, with key differences remaining on the areas of restricting welfare benefits and regulating the financial sector in London.

Poland's secretary of state for European affairs, Konrad Szymanski, told reporters that ministers were working hard to find an agreement over how Britain might index child benefit payments to living standards for EU migrants working in the UK but with children living abroad.

Complicating things further, Greece is piling pressure on its partners to continue keeping their borders open to the flow of refugees entering its shores from war-torn nations in the Middle East or risk vetoing the deal with Britain. Any deal needs total unanimity from all 28 members of the EU.

"We are close of course but we are not at the end of the story," Szymanski said. "I have not had any weekend plans since the beginning of the summit so I am prepared to stay here."

On the issue of a possible Greek veto he said: "I hope that in the parallel world here in this building we can manage this issue because we spent a lot of time yesterday to find a common ground and a pan-European response to the issue."

Cameron left the European Council in Brussels at 0430GMT Friday morning after a long night of preliminary talks. He found himself waking up three hours later to re-enter the cauldron where Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, held bilateral meetings with President Francois Hollande of France and Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, who is representing the four Visegrad countries - Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The crux of the disagreements surround how many years Britain would be able to request the implementation of a safeguard mechanism, otherwise called an emergency break, on in-work benefits for new EU migrants entering the UK.

In talks with Tusk, Sobotka insisted the emergency break should only be available to Britain for a maximum of five years, whereas Britain wants the availability of the mechanism to remain in place for 13 years - seven years initially followed by two renewable periods of three years.

Another key standoff is over the issue of how the allocation of child benefits would be indexed for EU migrants residing in the UK but with children abroad. Eastern European countries want the reduction in payments to apply only to new arrivals whereas Britain insists it should apply to all migrants including those already living in the country.

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[thenews]

UK's Cameron gets a "unanimously agreed" deal from Europe - What now for the pound? Dave's deal gets done

• All 28 states agreed the deal
• Overwhelming majority of conditions agreed to
• UK permanently out of an ever closer union
• UK will never be part of a European super state
• Says he has protected the future of the pound
• UK tax payers will never bail out Eurozone banks
• UK can enact emergency safeguards to protect the City and British businesses
• Says he can now recommend that that the UK should stay in the EU
• Will propose new measures to boost UK sovereignty
• Announcement on referendum date to come shortly
• Referendum will be a historic moment for Britain (being touted for June 23rd)
• A vote to leave wouldn't herald new negotiations
• Just because an organisation is frustrating doesn't mean we should leave
• Thinks the British people would be safer in rather than out
• Will meet the cabinet at 10am tomorrow (Sat)

That's some of the main comments coming out.

Let me clarify a few things, the deals on welfare and benefits is piecemeal stuff. It's something most European countries would be happy with as it saves money all round and pleases voters on some immigrations issues, and as we know, that's a hot topic right now.

For the referendum, the comments in bold above are what your average Brit wants to see. The spin is going to be that the UK can stay in Europe on the same basis we have now, with no risk that we'll be joining the Eurozone. Businesses and the City will be happy with the protections (full judgement to come on the details). If the UK believes in those 5 points then the referendum result will be a resounding vote to stay in.

David Cameron has won a huge battle in the Brexit war as he can come home and say he accomplished what he set out to do and got the UK a deal from Europe. What will happen over the weekend now is that the details of this deal will be dissected by the political parties and the press and the two sides of the Brexit war will go into battle to canvas for the referendum.

For the pound, that's one risk hurdle removed and I would hazard a guess the news has come too late for prices to react fully, so I'm still thinking that we could get some early action at the Monday Asia open.

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