Germany's unity chancellor Helmut Kohl has urged European leaders to draw breath in the post-Brexit confusion rather than risk any sudden moves that plunge the EU into even deeper crisis.
Though in ailing health, the 86-year-old former German leader intervened on Thursday in the open dispute between the EU and London over its departure from the EU.
A week after its referendum, Britain is seeking assurances about its future relationship with the bloc before it files its departure request. That has annoyed its EU partners, who insist London must trigger the exit procedure before they discuss the future.
"Europe needs to take a pause for breath," said Dr Kohl to Germany's Bild tabloid. "The task now is to find a sensible way to deal with the referendum."
In remarks that will be welcome to British ears, the former Christian Democrat (CDU) leader said it would be an “enormous mistake” for the EU to slam the door on London.
"Of greatest importance: it is up to Great Britain to decide for itself what it wants," he said in remarks confirmed by The Irish Times with Dr Kohl's office.
After a two-day meeting in Brussels to discuss the fallout of the Brexit vote, Dr Kohl – the driving force behind German unity, the euro and the EU's eastward enlargement – said the British result reflected a wider "unease" among Europeans towards the unification process.
Rather than push on with further unification, he urged “one step backwards and then slowly two steps forward at a pace that is feasible for the member states”.
At the end of this week's summit chancellor Angela Merkel said she was ready to give Britain some – but not endless – time to apply to leave the bloc. For the rest of the EU, she said its priority now was "not more or less Europe" but an EU that addressed its citizens' most pressing problems.
Dr Kohl said it was a misunderstanding to view European integration as a continent-wide standardisation procedure, and instead urged greater respect for regional diversity and identity.
