LONDON — With British politics in turmoil, there were already clear indications Saturday of a tense and bickering divorce from the European Union.
Britons woke up to a diminished currency and much confusion about the consequences of their vote Thursday to quit the European Union, including who would be their next prime minister. The leaders of the campaign to exit the bloc, or “Brexit,” continued to disagree over what kind of relationship they wanted with Europe, and thousands of Britons started signing a petition asking for a second referendum.
Meeting in Berlin, European leaders told Britain to hurry up and begin the formal process of exiting the union, while Prime Minister David Cameron said that process could wait until his replacement was chosen in October, and leaders of the “Leave” campaign suggested it could come even later, after a new round of talks with Brussels.
“I do not understand why the British government needs until October to decide whether to send the divorce letter to Brussels,” Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, told German television.
“I would like it immediately,” he said. “It is not an amicable divorce, but it was also not an intimate love affair.”
The emergency meeting of foreign ministers from the European Union’s six founding states — Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — revealed impatience and exasperation with Britain.
The Europeans want Cameron to start the legal process of quitting by immediately invoking Article 50 of the bloc’s governing treaty, which sets guidelines for severing ties and provides for a two-year window for talks. But nothing in the treaty requires Britain to invoke the article until it chooses, since it remains a full member of the bloc, with all privileges and obligations, until it quits.
The EU has other considerable challenges, including the migrant crisis, Greece’s turbulent economy and sanctions on Russia over Ukraine. European leaders, looking at Spanish elections today and German and French elections next year, want the uncertainty around the British question resolved as soon as possible so they can try to show their own voters that Brussels is capable and on track.
