US president Barack Obama has sought to play down concerns about the UK's vote to leave the European Union, saying that Britain could end up with a similar arrangement to the one that Norway has with the EU.
He framed the British vote in favour of exiting the EU as “a pause button” being pressed on the move toward full European integration.
"I would not overstate it: there's been a little bit of hysteria post-Brexit vote as if somehow Nato is gone and the transatlantic alliance is dissolving and every country is rushing off to its own corner. That's not what's happening," Mr Obama said in an interview with US radio station NPR.
“What’s happening is that you had a European project that was probably moving faster and without as much consensus as it should have.”
The US president supported British prime minister David Cameron on a visit to London in April by encouraging the UK to remain in the EU.
During the two-year negotiation between the UK and the EU on an exit, if Britain ends up with the same kind of affiliations with Europe and the US that non-EU member Norway has, then “the average person is not going to notice a big change”, said Mr Obama.
He has attributed the vote to part of a broader push-back against globalisation and people’s sense of marginalisation as new technologies mean less wealth and job security for workers in the US and abroad.
“This will be a moment when all of Europe says, ‘Let’s take a breath and let’s figure out how do we maintain some of our national identities, how do we preserve the benefits of integration and how do we deal with some of the frustrations that our own voters are feeling’,” he said.
