SHOULD WE STAY OR SHOULD WE GO NOW?

摘要

After three years of political jock- eying over the U.K.'s place in the European Union and two days of marathon negotiations with other EU leaders, a relieved and confident David Cameron appeared before the media at the Consil-ium, the bloc's Brussels headquarters, to declare victory late in the evening of February 19. His EU counterparts had agreed to grant most of the concessions he had demanded, including the rightto restrict welfare benefits to migrants from other EU countries, tighter guarantees that the U.K. and the City of London won't face discrimination or unfair regulatory pressure from the euro zone, and an exemption from the integrationist declaration in the union's founding treaties committing member states to "creating an ever closer union." In London the following day, the Conservative prime minister set a June 23 date tor a referendum on Britain's membership in the union and appealed to his fellow citizens to vote to stay in, insisting that they would be safer, stronger and better off inside the EU.