Berlin: EU founding states urge UK to leave bloc 'soon'

BERLIN (AA) – EU’s founding member states have urged the U.K. to leave the union “as soon as possible”, which would then enable them to focus on reforming the bloc after Brexit.

Foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg made the joint call to the British government after a two-hour long crisis talks in Berlin Saturday.

Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said the British government should begin exit negotiations without delay, after majority of its citizens voted to leave the union Thursday.

“We now have to turn the page. We would like to negotiate as soon as possible,” Koenders told a joint press conference following the meeting.

“We want negotiations in good faith, but at the same time Europe moves on. And that will not be as business as usual,” he said.

Koenders underlined that after Brexit, EU members states wanted to focus on reforms and measures to address concerns of European citizens.

“There are many concerns that our citizens have…in terms of migration, in terms of jobs and growth, but also in security,” he added.

U.K. citizens voted to leave the EU in a historic referendum Thursday, where almost 52 percent of voters rejected their country's 43-year EU membership. The referendum sparked worries across European capitals for a domino-effect in other members.

While EU’s leading member states demand exit talks to begin as soon as possible, the British government is signaling that it would only start negotiations after October.

U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron announced after the referendum that he would leave office by the time of his party’s conference in October. He also said that the U.K. needed a new “strong leadership” to conduct exit negotiations with the EU.