EU should have spoken out against "lies" in Brexit vote - Juncker

The European Union was wrong to stay silent in 2016 during the campaign ahead of the British referendum on membership in the bloc because it should have corrected "lies" spread by the "Leave" side, the head of the European Commission said.

"It was a mistake not to intervene and not to interfere because we would have been the only ones to destroy the lies which were circulated," Jean-Claude Juncker told a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday.

"I was wrong to be silent at an important moment," he said, adding that the bloc's top institutions were following the advice of Britain's former prime minister David Cameron, who warned meddling in the UK's internal affairs. (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski and Alastair Macdonald, Editing by Gabriela Baczynska)