Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra warned Tuesday that the EU faces "the smouldering threat of implosion" as Britain and other key countries reject it.
"The bitter reality is that we have a Union in which part of the population, mainly in northwestern Europe, wants to leave," he said in a Berlin speech.
Hoekstra pointed out that Norway and Switzerland "aren't interested in joining" the bloc while Denmark and Sweden had rejected the euro common currency.
On Britain, he said that "now, in one of the most tragic chapters of the EU, the second most important economic power and single most important geopolitical power in Europe wants to leave the Union".
He warned those on the continent who look forward to "a future without the difficult British", saying that this view "shows a complete misunderstanding of who the winner is".
"This is not a victory for London, or for Berlin or Paris, let alone The Hague. This is a victory for Moscow and for Beijing."
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