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“Everyone fends for himself,” begins Gazeta Wyborcza on its frontpage, summing up British Prime Minister David Cameron’s vision of the EU, which he laid out in an interview granted to five European dailies: Le Monde, El Mundo, Il Sole 24 Ore, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Gazeta Wyborcza.

In his view, faced with the competition from rising powers such as China, India or Malaysia, the EU has to be more “open and flexible”. The Warsaw daily notes that –

The word ‘flexible’ has came up several times in the conversation. It is a part of the European vision in which ‘not everyone in Europe does the same things at the same time’. Today, argues Cameron, Great Britain remains outside the Schengen area, while Poland and Sweden are outside the Eurozone.

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GW writes that Cameron’s speech in January in which he called for reform of the EU has aroused fears among European politicians that other countries may seek to pick and choose elements of EU membership, thus undermining the Union.

For Christopher Hope, The Daily Telegraph’s senior political correspondent, Cameron’s interview has the feeling of an “apology”, while his ambition that his speech would silence Eurosceptics such as those from the UK Independence Party (Ukip) has not been achieved.

The fact that Mr Cameron has had to [repeat his EU reform strategy] all again, in five languages, less than three months later shows the Bloomberg speech failed and the rise of Ukip [...] has barely been slowed.

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