EU leaders tonight said they will not open informal talks with Britain on Brexit and demanded David Cameron get on with triggering the official notification.
Britain has to trigger 'article 50' of the Lisbon Party to officially begin a two year negotiation that will end with the final Brexit.
Leading Brexiteers had demanded the EU talk informally to hammer out an outline of the deal before formal talks. Mr Cameron this afternoon backed the suggestion in the Commons.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel tonight said 'we agree there will be no formal or informal talks' with Britain until Article 50 of the EU treaty has been invoked.
She was speaking in Berlin after meeting with French President Francois Hollande and Italian premier Matteo Renzi.
Earlier, Mrs Merkel said she has a 'certain amount of understanding' for the fact that Britain may need 'a certain amount of time' to analyse what happens next.
Mrs Merkel said the EU needs to stop other countries following Britain out of the door amid market fears that the bloc is 'no longer governable' after Brexit.
The German Chancellor told her conservative party board in a conference call that it was necessary to prevent other European Union members going down the same path as Britain.
Merkel is also said to have revealed that international financial markets are concerned the EU is 'no longer governable' in the wake of Britain's exit vote.
She added that it was not the right time to pursue a quick deepening of cooperation between euro zone member states.
The EU should instead act on popular concerns such as securing the bloc's borders, creating jobs and improve internal security, she said.
Her comments were reported by two sources who took part in a telephone conference of the board of the Christian Democratic Union.
A German government spokesman said today there will be no informal discussions between Britain and the European Union before the British government has invoked formal divorce proceedings.
Steffen Seibert, spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, said the UK first needed to make the formal Article 50 request - the legal mechanism for the withdrawal of a member state from the EU.
'One thing is clear: before Britain has sent this request there will be no informal preliminary talks about the modalities of leaving,' he said.
'Only when Britain has made the request according to Article 50 will the European Council draw up guidelines in consensus for an exit agreement,' he added.
Guenther Oettinger, a German member of the EU's executive European Commission, also issued a warning.
'Every day of uncertainty prevents investors from putting their funds into Britain, and also other European markets,' he told Deutschlandfunk radio. 'Cameron and his party will cause damage if they wait until October.'
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken a softer line. She says she will not battle now over the timeframe and has underlined the need to continue a positive trade relationship with Britain, a big market for German carmakers and other manufacturers.
But a Merkel ally, Volker Kauder, made clear the exit negotiations would not be easy. 'There will be no special treatment, there will be no gifts,' Kauder, who leads Merkel's conservatives in parliament, told ARD television.
Speaking on the Today programme, German MP Michael Fuchs, a senior ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, made it clear things were going to have to change.
He said: 'Either you are in a club or you are out of a club. If you are in a club you have to follow the rules. If you are out of the club, there will be different rules.
When asked whether it would be possible for Britain to retain access to the single market, he added: 'It will be possible, of course, but not for free.
'You have to see with Norway, with Switzerland, you have to pay a certain fee. And the per capita fee of Norway is exactly the same as what Britain is now paying into the EU. So there won't be any savings.'
Today, Merkel said she understands that Britain may need 'a certain amount of time to analyse things' regarding its departure from the EU but adds that a 'long-term suspension' of the question wouldn't be in either side's economic interest.
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