Diplomats from EU’s founding 6 meet in Berlin to talk Brexit

Britain’s European Commissioner Jonathan Hill announced Saturday that he will stand down from his role following the country’s decision to leave.

Tusk said the 27 remaining members of the bloc would meet next week to assess its future without Britain.

“I don’t believe it is right that I should carry on as the British commissioner as though nothing had happened”, he said.

“I take it that in Britain there is a wish to deal with the referendum by implementing the result”. During a speech, he cited a petition urging him to remain.

The EU’s founding states said Saturday they want Britain to begin leaving the union “as soon as possible” as France urged a new British prime minister to take office quickly.

Despite the foreign ministers’ determination to look for solutions to the current crisis, the head of the EU’s executive Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned in German daily Bild on Saturday that other countries may also call for referendums to leave the EU. Otherwise, it turns the situation into a “a period of insecurity. I hope we won’t get into a cat and mouse game over this – that would neither be fitting for Britain nor the European Union”.

He said: “We understand and respect the result and understand that Great Britain will now concentrate on Great Britain”, but added that Britain has a responsibility to work with the European Union on exit terms.

The EU referendum, the culmination of an often poisonous campaign, revealed divides across British society, including between what The Independent newspaper called “those doing well from globalisation and those “left behind” and not seeing the benefits in jobs or wages”.

EU politicians must listen “to the expectations of the European governments, but also to the expectations of the people”, Steinmeier said, but cautioned against rash decisions.

He said exit talks should begin immediately.

European Parliament president Martin Schulz, a German SPD member, said it was “scandalous” that Britain was holding out until October for talks and accused Mr Cameron of “taking a whole continent hostage for internal (Tory) party considerations”.

It exposed deep divisions in Britain too, where more than 1.7 million people called for a new vote, young people railed against the anti-EU older generation and Scotland revived independence calls.

A 12,000-strong survey of referendum voters published by pollster Michael Ashcroft found that 73 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds and 62 percent of 25 to 34-year-olds had voted “Remain”.

French President François Hollande met with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday.

“During the several years in which the United Kingdom will have to renegotiate its trade relations with the EU, Moody’s expects heightened uncertainty, diminished confidence”, it said in a statement.

European Union leaders will open a two-day Brussels summit on the crisis on Tuesday.

Cameron plans to attend the first day of the summit but then return to London on Wednesday.

By Saturday morning, almost 800,000 Brits had signed an online parliamentary petition calling for a second referendum.

The vote affected stock markets worldwide, wiping out more than $2 trillion, and the British pound fell to its lowest level in 31 years. Credit rating agency Moody’s cut the UK’s outlook to “negative”.