British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative party yesterday shrugged off German anxiety about its plans to curb immigration from the European Union, saying it would tackle what has become a major public concern regardless.

“The British public want this addressed. We are going to do this in a calm, rational way,” George Osborne, Britain’s finance minister and a close Cameron ally, said after German media reported Chancellor Angela Merkel was uneasy about the idea.

Under growing pressure from the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) ahead of a May 2015 national election and from some of his own lawmakers, Cameron has said he’d like to try to curb EU immigration if re-elected.

He hasn’t explained how, and any changes would be contingent upon him winning the next election with an outright majority and making good on a promise to renegotiate Britain’s EU ties before holding an EU membership referendum in 2017.

His rhetoric has, however, already drawn criticism from the European Commission which says any such limits would infringe EU rules on free movement of workers.

Merkel, a vital ally for Cameron if he is to wring change from the EU, has long made clear she too believes the EU’s freedom of movement regime is sacrosanct.

But on Sunday German magazine Der Spiegel reported Merkel had hardened her stance on the issue.