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France, Germany and some other countries are “suspicious” that the UK really wants a veto for the City of London over EU regulation, according to Charles Grant, director of the Centre of European Reform.

Even strong EU supporters such as Charles Grant, director of the London-based thinktank Centre for European Reform, acknowledge that the "In" campaign will struggle to convince voters of the positive case for staying in the bloc. "There are many reasons to be pessimistic about the campaign," he told a Brussels audience. "The 'Out' campaign have jolly good arguments superficially... Big business is pathetic and cowardly."

"The worsening international backdrop has taken the wind out of the eurozone's sails," said Simon Tilford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, a London think-tank. Mr Tilford said there is currently little risk of recession in the eurozone, but added that global growth appears to be slowing before Europe's recovery gained any vigor. "The problem is the eurozone never really recovered from the previous downturn," he said, referring to Europe's long debt crisis in recent years.
 

Charles Grant, the director of the Centre for European Reform, a pro-EU think-tank, agreed the changes were largely cosmetic and designed to pander to the sensitivities of core-Europe. "The euro theologians in France and elsewhere have got the text to reassert the fiction that every country bar the UK and Denmark is on its way towards the euro," he said.

"Getting treaty change on the in-work benefits brake is crucial for Cameron because he will almost certainly be challenged before the European Court of Justice on this, given that some will claim it is discriminatory. He needs treaty change and the Poles are pivotal on this," Charles Grant said.