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Slovakia says it 'will support any measure' to avoid Brexit as new EU Council leaders

Britain should be given flexibility but no special deal, Slovakia says as it takes up the rotating EU presidency

Friday 01 July 2016 09:02 BST

(REUTERS)

The foreign minister of Slovakia has said he will “support any measure” to reverse Britain’s decision to leave the EU, offering a sliver of optimism for those hoping Brexit might never happen.

Slovakia takes over the rotating presidency of the EU today for the next six months – set to be a tumultuous period after Britain voted to leave the 28-nation bloc.

While the EU has to respect the Brexit decision, it should be “very flexible” in its dealings with Britain, Miroslav Lajčák told reporters at a press conference in Bratislava.

But the Slovakian minister ruled out the possibility of a “special deal” for the UK, which is the first country to break away from the EU since it formed under its current name in 1993.

“An EU with the UK is better than one without,” said Mr Lajčák, according to the Financial Times.

Britain voted to leave the EU in a referendum last week, with 51.9 per cent of votes in favour of Brexit.

But the UK cannot begin its divorce from the EU until it triggers Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which lays out the process for leaving the bloc.

Brexit: ‘Everything will be on the table’ during negotiations, says French minister

“I would support any measure that will help reverse the position of the British people, which we have to respect but also regret,” said Mr Lajčák, according to The Guardian.

In the aftermath of the referendum, which saw debate centered around issues of immigration, EU leaders have said Britain cannot have “a la carte” access to the single European market if it does not accept freedom of movement as well.

EU president Donald Tusk has said there will be no negotiations between Britain and the EU about the terms of a new relationship until the UK has formally declared its intention to leave.

But political turmoil in the UK following the unexpected result has cast doubts over the possibility of a swift exit from the EU.

This is despite pressure from some European leaders for the change to take place as quickly as possible.

Unveiling Slovakia's plans for the next six months, the country’s Prime Minister Robert Fico said the EU's migration policy does not work and Europe has failed to properly communicate with its citizens.

Slovakia, which has a population of 5.4 million, follows the Netherlands at the helm of the EU Council, which sets priorities for the EU agenda and works to bridge differences between the member states.

Mr Fico said EU heavyweight member states like France, Germany and Italy should start listening to the countries like Slovakia that have joined the 28-nation EU since 2004.

“The crucial decisions on the future of Europe cannot be defined by the decisions of one or two member states, or by the founding member states,” Fico told reporters in Bratislava on the eve of his presidency.

6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

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1/66 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

More expensive foreign holidays

The first practical effect of a vote to Leave is that the pound will be worth less abroad, meaning foreign holidays will cost us more

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

No immediate change in immigration status

The Prime Minister will have to address other immediate concerns. He is likely to reassure nationals of other EU countries living in the UK that their status is unchanged. That is what the Leave campaign has said, so, even after the Brexit negotiations are complete, those who are already in the UK would be allowed to stay

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

Higher inflation

A lower pound means that imports would become more expensive. This is likely to mean the return of inflation – a phenomenon with which many of us are unfamiliar because prices have been stable for so long, rising at no more than about 2 per cent a year. The effect may probably not be particularly noticeable in the first few months. At first price rises would be confined to imported goods – food and clothes being the most obvious – but inflation has a tendency to spread and to gain its own momentum

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

Interest rates might rise

The trouble with inflation is that the Bank of England has a legal obligation to keep it as close to 2 per cent a year as possible. If a fall in the pound threatens to push prices up faster than this, the Bank will raise interest rates. This acts against inflation in three ways. First, it makes the pound more attractive, because deposits in pounds will earn higher interest. Second, it reduces demand by putting up the cost of borrowing, and especially by taking larger mortgage payments out of the economy. Third, it makes it more expensive for businesses to borrow to expand output

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

Did somebody say recession?

Mr Carney, the Treasury and a range of international economists have warned about this. Many Leave voters appear not to have believed them, or to think that they are exaggerating small, long-term effects. But there is no doubt that the Leave vote is a negative shock to the economy. This is because it changes expectations about the economy’s future performance. Even though Britain is not actually be leaving the EU for at least two years, companies and investors will start to move money out of Britain, or to scale back plans for expansion, because they are less confident about what would happen after 2018

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6 ways Britain leaving the EU will affect you

And we wouldn’t even get our money back

All this will be happening while the Prime Minister, whoever he or she is, is negotiating the terms of our future access to the EU single market. In the meantime, our trade with the EU would be unaffected, except that companies elsewhere in the EU may be less interested in buying from us or selling to us, expecting tariff barriers to go up in two years’ time. Whoever the Chancellor is, he or she may feel the need to bring in a new Budget

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Slovakia has previously been critical of the EU Commission's mandatory quota scheme to share among all EU nations refugees from Syria or Iraq.

EU members voted to pass the measure but Slovakia was among a small minority, along with Hungary, to be overruled.

In January, Mr Fico declared multiculturalism "a fiction" and said Slovakia would put measures in place to curb immigration from Muslim countries.

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