Tusk comes out against too much EU integration

LUXEMBOURG — European Union President Donald Tusk says that those who believe in "instant and total integration" of the EU have missed what many people really want and raised the prospect of having an open and big debate among member states on where the EU should be heading.

Less than a month before the June 23 referendum on EU membership in Britain, where the EU is often depicted as a hulking super state, Tusk said in frank words that today's generation of EU politicians was responsible for creating "a utopia of Europe without nation states."

Tusk told a meeting of his EPP Christian Democrat group that "obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe do not share our Euro-enthusiasm."