"I will do everything in my power to make sure that the EU and the UK be close friends in the future. Britain will be dearly missed as an EU member state. At the same time, I would like to stress again that the EU’s door will always remain open for our British friends," Tusk said in his address to the European Parliament.
The United Kingdom is expected to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of March, thus initiating the country's withdrawal process from the European Union.
