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Hungary’s Orban says optimistic of deal on UK’s European Union welfare curbs

” Consensus is growing among pro- and anti-EU campaigners that the referendum on Britain’s membership of the bloc will not be held until September, amid signs that a deal on David Cameron’s reform proposals will be delayed until March”.

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“So I have every confidence that we will achieve an agreement that works for Britain and works for our European partners”, he said.

Cameron has vowed to hold the in-out referendum by the end of next year but British media have reported he could hold the vote as soon as June 2016 if he gets a deal at February’s summit.

Cameron says the concessions, taken together, represent a “pathway to a deal”.

“Goodwill and creative thinking can find solutions”, he said.

He added: “We do not want to be parasites, we want to work there”.

The word “migrants” in Cameron’s proposals has also been a sticking point for Orban who has fought a year-long battle to keep migrants from entering Hungary including building border fences.

“I am relatively optimistic”, Rutte said.

He said: “I don’t think that is the right answer for the reasons I have given”.

The ORB snapshot showed 21 per cent of voters were still undecided while 43 per cent wanted to leave the European Union and 36 per cent wanted to stay.

If you take out the undecideds from the mix, 54% of Brits are in favour of Brexit, compared to 51% at this time previous year, while those wanting to remain slipped from 49% to 46% over the same period.

The changes sought by Britain to cut bureaucracy and trade barriers, differentiate between rules for countries inside and outside the euro area and to limit benefits for immigrants will be good for Germany and the rest of the EU, Cameron said in an op-ed article in Bild, Germany’s most-read newspaper, on Thursday.

“I can’t envisage us negotiating a deal which the Prime Minister thinks is good enough to recommend to the British people and which I feel I want to campaign against. Over the last twelve months significantly more of us have felt further removed from Europe (38%) than closer to Europe (13%)”. Pro-Europeans warn that Britain’s exit would shake the Union to its core.

David Cameron has insisted he still hopes to complete his European Union membership renegotiation next month after his Hungarian counterpart said he was “sure” British concerns about benefits abuses could be accommodated.

Mr Cameron has been attending the Christian Social Union’s (CSU) annual conference in Bavaria, where he had informal talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel over dinner on Wednesday. They’re hard, they’re tough.

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Orban, whose outspoken opposition to admitting refugees and embrace of “illiberal democracy” have boosted his popularity at home but drawn condemnation overseas, was Cameron’s only ally in a failed 2014 attempt to block the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president.

London is pushing for an EU-wide agreement at a summit next month