Britain's divorce terms with the European Union must be fair, but not as good as those for full EU members, the Prime Minister of Malta, which holds the rotating EU presidency, told a news conference on Wednesday.
"We want a fair deal for the United Kingdom, but that fair deal needs to be inferior to membership," Joseph Muscat said. "It cannot end up better than the current situation."
Muscat added that the other 27 countries of the EU would first agree their own position, once Britain formally notifies them it wants to leave before the end of March, and that only then they would negotiations start with London over the terms.
He said he had rarely seen such unity among EU governments as they displayed in the case of negotiations with Britain.
Muscat said there would be only "one contact point" for negotiations -- the European Commission, which would from time to time consult with EU governments when a political decision would need to be made.
European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, also present at the news conference, said the EU needed to show that the departure of Britain did not mean the end of European integration.
"If are considering the Brexit case as the beginning of the end, we would make a major mistake," he said.
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