#Brexit: 'No progress' so far on Cameron's talks

Negotiations on David Cameron's EU reform demands have made 'no real progress' so far, Downing Street sources say.The first EU Council session ended with no agreement on several issues as Number 10 played down hopes of a deal.

EU sources said the talks were 'constructive' but said other countries had spoken out against Cameron's plans. Friday's session on the UK's demands has been put back to allow him to speak to individual leaders one-to-one.

When talks return to the UK's reforms, Cameron will seek to secure the deal which he wants before holding an in/out referendum on the UK's EU membership.

However, he has said he will walk away from the summit without agreement unless he gets a 'credible' package he can sell to voters in the referendum.

The PM's Eurosceptic critics have branded the process a sham, saying that even if the reforms are agreed they will not allow the UK to block unwanted EU laws or affect the scale of EU migration.

An EU source spoke of five key areas where agreement has not been reached:

• How the EU's binding treaties will be altered to make the changes
• How many member states can trigger an 'emergency brake' on migrant welfare
• For how long a member state can impose restrictions on in-work benefits for migrants
• Whether child benefit curbs can be applied retrospectively
• Changing treaties to alter the principle of 'ever-closer' union

Thursday's meeting was 'intense and constructive', an EU source said, but while all the countries confirmed their wish for the UK to stay in, some also set out specific concerns.

"We expected this," the EU source said: "But honestly we had hoped for some of them to be less critical."

Earlier, senior EU officials talked up the chances of a deal, with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker saying he was 'quite confident' during the Council meeting and Council president Donald Tusk saying it was a 'make-or-break summit'.

Speaking as he arrived at the summit, Cameron said: "I'll be battling for Britain. If we can get a good deal I'll take that deal. But I will not take a deal that doesn't meet what we need. I think it's much more important to get this right than to do anything in a rush. But with good will, with hard work, we can get a better deal for Britain."

The key parts of the UK deal include:

• Allowing Britain to opt out from the EU's founding ambition to forge an "ever closer union" of the peoples of Europe and greater powers to national parliaments to block EU legislation
• Restrictions on other EU nationals getting in-work benefits in the UK for four years. Changing child benefit rules so payment reflects cost of living in countries where the child lives
• Explicit recognition that the euro is not the only currency of the EU and guarantees to ensure countries outside the eurozone are not disadvantaged or have to join eurozone bailouts
• A target for the reduction of the "burden" of excessive regulation and extending the single market

France is thought to be resisting attempts to secure protection for the City of London by giving non-eurozone nations more power to stall financial regulation.

Cameron's plan to cut the amount of child benefit EU migrants can send back to to their home countries would apply across the EU according to leaked versions of a draft deal - something that would be resisted by Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

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