As the night gets going in Brussels, there is some pretty heavy briefing about the progress being made in the talks. British officials say leaders are still stuck on the major issues, including benefits, and that Cameron could walk away from the summit with no deal. There are some major issues to resolve, sources said, adding that while many countries were showing a desire to help, the European Council president Donald Tusk ‘shares the assessment that there are some serious differences’.
It is, we have been briefed, going to be a long night as leaders try to hammer out those differences, before the breakfast session tomorrow where it had been hoped that there would be a deal.
It was predictable that the British delegation would want to make their deal appear to be hard-won as a result of late-night, skilled negotiations from David Cameron, rather than a breeze that was all sewn up before anyone even set foot in Brussels. But it may also be an attempt to manage expectations as leaders genuinely struggle to reach agreement: Bloomberg is reporting that Cameron has upped his demands of EU leaders because the draft deal was so underwhelming.
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