Brexit impact: After UK, other nations look to EU's exit door

Just minutes after the result of the referendum emerged several other EU member countries began looking towards the exit door.

Flags of EU members at the EU headquarters. Photo: Utrecht Network

Brexit has opened a floodgate of devastation to rain over the European Union (EU). The consequences of UK choosing to leave the EU are beyond the bloodbath in the markets or UK Prime Minister David Cameron's resignation today.

Questions now emerge as to whether it is beneficial to be part of the EU or not. Just minutes after the result of the referendum emerged several other EU member countries began looking towards the exit door.

For instance, former French Prime Minister and a front-runner in the 2017 presidential election, Allan Juppe said that the EU need to change fundamentally now that British voters have decided to leave. "We can't go on like before," Juppe said on Europe 1 radio. "We need to write a new chapter for Europe."

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Juppe added that the EU needed urgently to show it could control immigration along its borders and relaunch growth to keep the confidence voters among its other members.

He added, "There's an understandable disaffection with Europe. It seems like an incomprehensible bureaucratic machine incapable of getting growth and jobs going, incapable of controlling its borders."

Even France's far right National Front party called for a French referendum on European Union membership on Friday, cheering a Brexit vote it hopes can boost its eurosceptic agenda at home.

Spain will seek co-sovereignty on Gibraltar following Britain's vote to leave the European Union, acting foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said on Friday, saying the vote completely changed the outlook on the future of the island.

The small island off the south coast of Spain, a British Overseas Territory since 1713 and known to its 30,000 residents as "the Rock", is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations.

"It's a complete change of outlook that opens up new possibilities on Gibraltar not seen for a very long time. I hope the formula of co-sovereignty - to be clear, the Spanish flag on the Rock - is much closer than before," he said.

Other countries such as Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Italy could join in chorus for EU exits.

In Netherlands, right-wing leader Geert Wilders, who is openly against the EU, is currently topping opionion polls in the country, according to Metro.co.uk article.

In Sweden currently 36% of the people want to exit the EU, said the same report. While in Italy Beppe Grillo, leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Party, announced on Tuesday that he would demand a referendum on the Euro.

While these nations look to exit the EU, others nations look to exit Britain as a result of the EU referendum.

Soon after the outcome of the vote became clear, Nicola Sturgen, the first minister of Scotland came out and said that the country wants to stay within the EU.

Even Northern Ireland is now threatening a referendum as it intends to stay a part of the EU.

Scotland and Northern Ireland’s votes stood at 62% and 55.7% respectively to remain in the EU in today’s historic referendum.

Northern Ireland’s largest nationalist party Sinn Fein also told Reuters that they would like a broader poll as they feel Britain has not acted in their interest by voting out of the union.

"The British government now has no democratic mandate to represent the views of the North in any future negotiations with the European Union and I do believe that there is a democratic imperative for a 'border poll' to be held," Fein told national Irish broadcaster RTE.

(With inputs from Reuters)

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