BORIS Johnson's upcoming departure from Downing Street "opens a new page" in UK relations with the European Union, it has been claimed.
Former European Commission chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in a tweet following Mr Johnson's resignation speech referred to the row over UK plans to override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Speaking of the future UK-EU relationship, Mr Barnier said: "May it be more constructive, more respectful of commitments made, in particular regarding peace & stability in NI, and more friendly with (EU) partners."
He added: "Because there’s so much more to be done together."
In recent months, Mr Johnson had positioned himself as a staunch ally of Ukraine following the invasion by Russia earlier this year.
The PM visited Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv last month - his second visit to Ukraine since the invasion.
Speaking of Mr Johnson's resignation as Conservative leader, Mr Zelensky said: "We all welcome this news with sadness. Not only me, but also all of Ukrainian society."
Mr Zelensky said of Mr Johnson that Ukrainian society "sympathises with you a lot".
However, Mr Johnson's upcoming departure as prime minister was welcomed in Russia, where Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: "He doesn't like us, we don't like him either."
The speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said: "The clown is going."
He added of Mr Johnson: "He is one of the main ideologues of the war against Russia until the last Ukrainian. European leaders should think about where such a policy leads."
Meanwhile, global news outlets referred to criticism at home of Mr Johnson's handling of recent scandals, including 'Partygate' in which Number 10 hosted parties during Covid lockdowns.
The Washington Post published an analysis piece titled 'The cringe of Boris Johnson', in which reporter Adam Taylor wrote: "For years, Boris Johnson’s superpower was his lack of shame."
He added: "Finally forced to announce his resignation Thursday, Johnson ended up the first British prime minister brought down not by personal shame, but by a collective cringe."
An opinion piece in Germany's Die Welt newspaper questioned: "Genius or charlatan – you never really knew with Boris Johnson."
Jacques Schuster wrote that Johnson "never took anything seriously".
"He doesn't give a damn about what the establishment thinks of him - which makes him very similar to his role model Winston Churchill," he added.
France's Le Monde said the PM's decision to go came as he was "discredited by scandals", while daily Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger wrote that Mr Johnson had "overwhelmed Britain".
Other newspapers to feature Mr Johnson on their front pages ahead of his resignation included Austria's Kurier, which highlighted the PM's increasing isolation at Westminster with the line: "The party friends ran away", while Barcelona's Catalan paper Ara said he was "alone" amid a mass of government resignations.
