MOSCOW (Sputnik) – On Thursday, a nationwide referendum was held in Britain in which 51.9 percent of the voters said they were in favor of Brexit (UK leaving the EU).
"Obviously it will have a strong impact not only on the UK but also the EU," Uruguay’s former foreign minister Sergio Abreu Bonilla told Sputnik, stressing that since the United Kingdom is Europe’s second economy and the fifth world economy, the bloc now has "a very serious problem" in terms of its future prospects as a customs union and a common market.
The United Kingdom still needs to formally notify the European Union of its intention to leave the bloc. After that, it has two years to negotiate the terms of its divorce.
Dr. Jamie Trinidad, a fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge, told Sputnik that Brexit will inevitably lead to the weakening of the European Union.
"The departure of the UK from the EU is going to be [that] the EU will be a much diminished force in global affairs," Trinidad said, stressing that "difficult negotiations between UK and EU" are ahead.
According to Trinidad, the European Union will want to trade with Britain on good terms but will abstain from giving it too easy of a deal to avoid a chain reaction of other states leaving the bloc.
"I very much doubt that the EU will accept that the UK can be part of the single market without accepting the free movement of persons, so that could well be a sticking point," Trinidad told Sputnik.
The United Kingdom will need to discuss several points with the European Union, including determining the status of Britons living in the bloc and EU citizens living in the United Kingdom, as well as ways of governing future trade.
