The President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz said here Friday that he is “very sad” over the result of the United Kingdom referendum to leave the EU.
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That echoed comments in Berlin by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who told German broadcaster ARD he wanted to begin negotiating Britain’s departure now rather than in October, when Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will resign.
The text, likely to be adopted by Parliament without changes on Tuesday in an extraordinary sitting, also urged Britain to “notify immediately” its intention to quit the European Union, a move that would trigger the two-year withdrawal procedure laid down in the European Union treaties.
But some Brexit supporters have suggested London could delay that notification to make time for informal talks on the best possible exit deal.
“I am not shocked”, he said of the results of the British referendum, adding: “We were prepared”.
“We need to avoid a long period of uncertainty and the European continent can not be occupied by an internal Tory [Conservative] battle about who will be the next leader of the Tory party and the prime minister of Great Britain”, he said. “We have now from a legal and procedural point of view to assess what are the necessary next steps”, he said after a meeting of leaders of political groups in the EP. And the most important thing is that we do this very quickly. “Now the United Kingdom chose to leave and therefore the member states who remain in the European Union must discuss how to improve the European Union and how to protect especially the Eurozone countries”, he told reporters.
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“We need to avoid a long period of uncertainty and the European continent can not be occupied by an internal Tory battle about who will be the next leader of the Tory party and the prime ministers of Great Britain”, Weber said. “We want to immediately start with negotiations. leave means leave”, Weber said.
