Deal or no deal? Cameron bid to reform EU hits fresh obstacles

Charles Grant, director of the CER, says the emergency brake is fraught with difficulties. "British officials want to be able to use the brake immediately. Yet the mechanism could well require EU legislation, which often takes more than a year. Second, according to what criteria would use of the brake be permissible? The British will want the criteria to be vague enough for them to be able to pull it easily; the commission and other member states will try to make the criteria objective and hard to satisfy."

"Most difficult of all, who decides whether a government can pull the brake? Initially, the commission insisted on that power for itself, which was unacceptable to Cameron. The current idea of a vote in the council of ministers may be more palatable."