German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Friday to help keep Britain in the EU by working on reforms with Prime Minister David Cameron, even keeping the door open to treaty change. Offering a warm and conciliatory tone to visiting Cameron - who had received mixed welcomes elsewhere on a two-day European whistlestop tour - she said Berlin was willing to pursue compromise on London's demands.
"Where there's a will, there's a way," said Merkel, stressing that Germany would not rule out changing EU founding treaties, a tricky issue since it requires approval by all member states and could lead to referendums in some. As both sides discuss a list of issues, "you cannot say that treaty change is a total impossibility," she said at a joint news conference, adding however that "we all know the difficulties". Cameron, after his second-term election win this month, has vowed to push strongly for EU reforms and "a better deal for Britain" ahead of an in-out membership referendum he has promised by 2017.
Merkel said that "on the German side there is a clear hope - and of course this will be decided by the British people - that Britain will stay on as a member of the European Union". An upbeat Cameron said that "today was an opportunity to really get down to business and to work through each issue", adding that "of course there is no magic quick solution" to the bundle of issues under discussion. "The European Union has shown before that when one of its member states has a problem that needs sorting out, it can be flexible enough to do so, and I have every confidence that it will do so again," he said.