BRUSSELS — European Union leaders began plotting a future without
Britain on Tuesday, urging the island nation and economic powerhouse to
disentangle itself as fast as possible from the other 27 nations in the
bloc to avoid extending the turmoil that has been roiling European and
global markets.
EU Council President Donald Tusk said he was planning a special
meeting of the EU leaders minus Cameron in Bratislava in September to
chart a way ahead, after last week’s referendum made abundantly clear
that a business-as-usual approach to Britain leaving could possibly
threaten the unity of the entire bloc.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister David Cameron held talks with European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker hours ahead of an EU summit in
Brussels where the outgoing British leader is expected to say that exit
talks might not be launched before October. There has been talk that
Britain wants informal negotiations on what the U.K.’s future relations
with Europe might look like before that happens — a notion many in the
bloc have rejected.
European
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, speaks during a
special session of European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, June 28,
2016. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)
Juncker and other European leaders insist they won’t begin any talks
until Britain invokes the Article 50 of the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon, which
sets in motion a two-year process to split away from the group designed
to unify Europe after the horrors of World War II.
In an unprecedented emergency session of the EU parliament, called
after Britain voted Thursday to leave the union, Juncker demanded that
Britain clarify its future.
“I want the U.K. to clarify its position. Not today, not tomorrow at 9
a.m., but soon,” he told lawmakers Tuesday. “We cannot allow ourselves
to remain in a prolonged period of uncertainty.”
Juncker said he had banned his policy commissioners from holding any
secret talks with Britain on its future until London triggers the exit
clause.
“No notification. No negotiation,” he said to resounding applause.
Tusk was already looking further ahead. He said the 27 EU heads and
state and government — minus Cameron — would hold a special meeting in
September to discuss “the new process of deeper reflection, a new
impulse for Europe, a new future for Europe.”
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