Europe vows no compromise with Brexit Britain

PanARMENIAN.Net - Europe's leaders have vowed no compromise on the terms of their divorce with Britain as a free-falling pound on Friday dramatically underscored the perils ahead for Prime Minister Theresa May's government, AFP reports.

French President Francois Hollande sent one of the strongest warnings yet that Britain will have to pay a heavy price for leaving the European Union, while European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said the bloc must be "unyielding" in the face of London's demands.

Hollande called for "firmness" by the EU powers in Brexit negotiations to avoid the risk that other countries might seek to follow Britain's lead and leave the bloc.

"There must be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price, otherwise we will be in negotiations that will not end well," he said in a speech Thursday evening.

His message was hammered home Friday, October 7 by Juncker, who said the 27 nations Britain was leaving behind must not give way easily in what are set to be tense negotiations.

"You can't have one foot in and one foot out," Juncker told a conference in Paris, warning that Britain risked "trampling everything that has been built" over six decades of European integration.

"We must be unyielding on this point. I see the manoeuvring (by Britain)," he added, according to AFP.

Hollande's comments added to pressure on the pound on financial markets, with the British currency suffering its biggest drop since Britain voted in a June referendum to leave the EU.

In Asian trading the pound plummeted by 6 percent for a couple of moments to hit a 31-year low of $1.1841, recovering to $1.2364 in late morning European trading.

The firm response from Europe followed May's announcement that her government will trigger Brexit negotiations by the end of March, putting the country on course to leave the EU by early 2019.