Britons should keep EU citizenship rights after Brexit, Europe's chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt says

'We need to have an arrangement in which this arrangement can continue for those citizens who on an individual basis are requesting it,' Guy Verhofstadt says

British citizens should be able to choose to keep various benefits of EU membership including the freedom of movement after Brexit, the European Parliament's chief negotiator has said.

Guy Verhofstadt said Britons could keep certain rights if they apply for them on an individual basis.

He said: "All British citizens today have also EU citizenship. That means a number of things: the possibility to participate in the European elections, the freedom of travel without problem inside the union...

"We need to have an arrangement in which this arrangement can continue for those citizens who on an individual basis are requesting it."

But he also warned that the European Parliament is committed to ensuring countries outside the union do not have a better deal than those within it, BBC 5 Live reported.

Mr Verhofstadt previously said the EU needs to be "open and generous" to individual UK citizens and said politicians were considering how to allow them to maintain their ties to the continent.

He told an audience at Chatham House in January: "We are scrutinising, thinking, debating how we could achieve that.

"That individual UK citizens would think their links with Europe are not broken."

Press Association