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“Of course there can be products from Britain coming to the continent but only according to the rules – and we have to set these rules,” Verhofstadt said.
He warned that this might also mean that some products will no longer be allowed under EU regulations.
“It is not a question of punishing a country but of principles,” he said.
Verhofstadt renewed his hope that the EU and the UK would reach an association agreement.
“We have to avoid a ‘Swiss nightmare’, ie that the relationship between the EU and another country is based on many different individual treaties,” he said.
Meanwhile, creating a Capital Markets Union (CMU) for the EU was a “top priority” for the former Belgian prime minister.
“The biggest problem”, he said, was that there had as yet been no agreement on the CMU’s proposal to create a single resolution fund for the bloc.
“It will be big enough to solve the problems of mid-size banks, but there is no agreement on how to finance it,” Verhofstadt said.