David Cameron has set out the rules that will dictate who is eligible to vote in the EU referendum, and committed to a breakneck schedule of diplomacy to ensure his plans for significant reform in Brussels are enacted swiftly.

Downing Street has said the franchise for the referendum will be the same as that which dictates general elections.

This means that British, Irish and Commonwealth citizens who are over 18 and resident in the UK are eligible to vote, as are UK nationals resident overseas for less than 15 years.

EU nationals resident in the UK, who are entitled to vote in European elections, will nevertheless miss out on this occasion.

An EU Referendum Bill will be the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech, to be unveiled on Wednesday.

The Bill has now been assured a smooth passage through parliament by Labour's decision to withdraw its opposition to the project.

The Labour leadership has chosen to avoid the bloody nose the party would have suffered had it tried to block the bill, and will instead concentrate on campaigning for the UK to stay in the European Union in the referendum campaign.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is pressing ahead with a whistlestop tour of European capitals to try to secure reform he believes will make EU membership more palatable to the British people.

On Thursday, he will hold talks with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and then on to dinner with French President Francois Hollande at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

The pace does not slacken on Friday, with a meeting in Warsaw with Polish Prime Minister Eva Kopacz, and then with the key European powerbroker Angel Merkel in Berlin.

Over the next few weeks, Mr Cameron intends to hold face-to-face talks with all his European counterparts.

Then, at the full EU summit scheduled for the end of June, he will get a sense of whether they are ready to do business with him.