London (dpa) - European leaders are not expected to reach agreement on Britain‘s demands for EU reforms during a summit in mid-December, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Thursday.The negotiations are "making good progress" but the scale of Britain‘s demands means "we will not resolve this in one go" and no agreement is expected at the summit of the European Union‘s 28 national leaders, Cameron told reporters in Bulgaria.Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed by telephone earlier Thursday that "there remain difficult issues to resolve" ahead of the December 17-18 meeting, Cameron‘s office said.Cameron has promised to renegotiate the terms of Britain‘s EU membership before holding an in-out referendum by the end of 2017.In a letter to EU President Donald Tusk last month, he set out reforms covering competitiveness, national sovereignty, social security and economic governance.Cameron told Merkel that his priority is to "get the substance right, underlining the need for legally binding, irreversible changes."The two leaders agreed that the summit should hold "a substantive discussion of the proposed changes in each area," his office said.In his letter to Tusk, Cameron said EU nations need to "crack down on the abuse of free movement," while Britain wants to "reduce the current very high level of population flows from within the EU."
