Tusk: Hunt’s ‘unwise’ Soviet Union jibe will only raise heat on Brexit

The European Council president has branded foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt’s comparison of the EU and Soviet Union as an unwise insult.

Donald Tusk demanded greater respect from the UK government, saying “unacceptable comments” were achieving nothing other than to raise the temperature of the Brexit negotiations. Mr Tusk also rejected any suggestion the EU had not respected the dignity of the UK at the recent meeting of European leaders at Salzburg.

Mr Tusk – a former prime 0 Donald Tusk has criticised Jeremy Hunt’s comments

minister of Poland who was imprisoned as a young man living behind the Iron Curtain – made a clear reference to Mr Hunt’s controversial remarks after meeting with Irish premier Leo Varadkar in Brussels.

“In respecting our partners, we expect the same in return,” Mr Tusk said. “Comparing the EU to the Soviet Union is as unwise as it is insulting.

“The Soviet Union was about prisons and gulags, borders and walls, violence against citizens and neighbours. The European Union is about freedom and human rights, prosperity and peace, life without fear. It is about democracy and pluralism – a continent without internal borders and walls.

“As the president of the European Council and someone who spent half his life in the Soviet bloc, I know what I am talking about.”

Mr Tusk added: “Unacceptable remarks … achieve nothing except wasting more time.”