The head of the European parliament has called for federal government for the EU in the wake of Brexit.

Martin Schulz, the parliament president, said it was time for the European Commission to be replaced with a “genuine European government”.

An elected government answerable to the European parliament would “make for more transparent political accountability at the EU level,” Mr Schulz wrote in an opinion piece for Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

If citizens were dissatisfied, they could “replace one European government with another through elections,” he wrote.