Lars Loekke Rasmussen, Danish Prime Minister, said Denmark “belongs in Europe” but said mounting Euroscepticism must be taken seriously.
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Britons voted 52 to 48 percent Thursday in favor of ending their country’s 43-year membership in the 28-nation bloc.
Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for Britain, saying its creditworthiness was now at greater risk as the country would face substantial challenges to successfully negotiating its exit from the bloc. “That’ll have consequences, and I don’t believe other countries will be encouraged to follow that risky path”, he said.
Juncker said the split was “not an amicable divorce” adding that it was never “a tight love affair anyway”.
The Foreign Ministers from EU’s founding six Frank-Walter Steinmeier from Germany, Didier Reynders from Belgium, Paolo Gentiloni from Italy, Bert Koenders from the Netherlands, Jean Asselborn from Luxemburg and Jean-Marc Ayrault from France, from left, walk through the park of the Foreign Ministry’s guest house Villa Borsig during a meeting to talk about the so-called Brexit in Berlin, Germany, Saturday, June 25, 2016.
Ahead of Saturday’s meeting, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier struck a more cautious tone, stating it was crucial to preserve the “project of freedom and stability”.
The Franco-German axis at the heart of the bloc, which was born out of a determination to forge lasting peace after two world wars, will propose “concrete solutions” to make the European Union more effective, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told AFP.
Many EU leaders expressed shock and dismay at the vote.
European Union law may seem clear but European Union leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel included, are loath to see Britain go and may yet seek a way to keep it in, whatever the vote on June 23.
The European Parliament will hold an emergency session Tuesday, hours before the summit. A poll of economists by Reuters predicted Britain was likelier than not to fall into recession within a year. “I did not think we would come out”.
What This Means: While there is panic in some quarters and rejoicing in others, the wise if boringly sensible approach is to sit tight, wait, and see what happens. More than 800,000 people have signed a parliamentary petition calling for a second referendum.
In addition, the InterinstitutionalFramework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission requires the President of the Commission to “seriously consider” the results of the consultation of the European Parliament before giving his accord to the decision of the Council to appoint the new Commissioner (para 6 of the Framework Agreement). It’s not clear what will happen in the markets on Monday, the next trading day.
London’s FTSE 100 index recovered to close down 3.2 per cent.
Lord Hill, who has been a guardian of British financial interest in Brussels, said that it made “no sense” to leave the European Union at a time when the United Kingdom could help to drive the market reform agenda forward.
“Take a bow, Britain!”, eurosceptic newspaper the Daily Mail wrote across its front page yesterday.
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The Daily Mail hailed it as a victory by “the quiet people of Britain” over an arrogant, out-of-touch political establishment and a contemptuous Brussels.
