'EU is not the Soviet Union'
British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday that the European Union was not like the Soviet Union after her foreign secretary provoked anger by likening the 28-member bloc to the USSR.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt cautioned the EU on Sunday that it was set up to protect freedoms but that the lesson from Soviet history was that if you turned it into a prison then the desire to leave would increase.
When asked about Hunt's comment, May said: "As I sit around that table in the European Union there are countries there who used to be part of the Soviet Union, they are now democratic countries and I can tell you that the two organizations are not the same."
With less than six months until Britain leaves the EU, May has yet to reach a deal with the EU on the terms the Brexit divorce and rebels in her Conservative Party have promised to vote down any deal she makes.
Hunt's comment on the Soviet Union provoked anger in Europe, especially among some eastern members of the EU which only regained full independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Lithuania's EU commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis told Hunt he was born in a Soviet gulag forced labor camp and was jailed by the Soviet KGB state security agency.
