David Cameron begins mission to win over European leaders

The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister David Cameron is starting a tour of European capitals as a bill for the UK's EU referendum is launched in the House of Commons.

International media report that the prime minister is expected to persuade the Dutch, French, Polish and German leaders to back his changes to the UK's membership of the EU.

The EU Referendum Bill will confirm the question to be put to voters: "Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union?" and  the vote is expected to take place by 2017.

The referendum bill was announced as part of the newly appointed Conservative government’s plans in the Queen's Speech. The plan also included an increase in free childcare, an income tax freeze and the right-to-buy for housing association tenants.

The BBC reports that Downing Street said the draft law's first reading in the Commons was a "concrete step towards settling the debate about the UK's membership of the EU".

Cameron has pledged to renegotiate the UK's relationship with the EU before holding the referendum, and he has vowed to visit all 27 other member states ahead of a summit in June.

His tour will take him to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and French President Francois Hollande, followed by Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Cameron has called for changes to EU migrants' welfare entitlement, while some Conservatives also want the primacy of British law to be reaffirmed.  He also hinted he could vote to leave the EU if his requests are not granted, saying he "rules nothing out".

Downing Street said the choice put to voters "should not be on the basis of the status quo but on a reformed relationship with the EU that the PM is determined to deliver". However, some member states have questioned the need for any change to EU treaties, and ruled out any watering down of the key principle of freedom of movement.

The Guardian has reported Cameron is planning to demand change in four broad areas, namely to; bar unemployed EU migrants from claiming benefits and force EU migrants in employment to wait four years before claiming in-work benefits, to hand the UK an opt-out from the “ever closer union” declaration, to ensure that EU member states outside the eurozone, such as the UK, could not have changes to the rules of the single market imposed on them by eurozone countries and to give national parliaments the right to club together to block new legislative proposals.