Nathalie Loiseau, France’s minister for European affairs, said the UK needed to satisfy its commitments to the EU before a “new relationship” was built.
Speaking to CNBC, the minister said Britain was concentrating too much on the future instead of settling current issues, such as a potential £80 billion divorce bill.
Ms Loiseau added the UK had to suffer a disadvantage from leaving the Brussels bloc.
She said: “For the time being the British government gives more information about the future than about ‘how do we treat the past, how do we settle the financial commitments of the United Kingdom.
“How do we make the border between Ireland and the United Kingdom work and how do we treat European citizens staying in the United Kingdom.’
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“We do need to have clear and precise answers to these questions before we can build trust and start with the new relation between the United Kingdom and Europe.
“We don’t want to punish the United Kingdom, we want to have a smooth and fair relation with the United Kingdom but one has to be clear, there has to be less advantages in being outside the European Union than being a member of the European Union.”
Brussels was left “flabbergasted” on Wednesday when the UK’s Brexit negotiators rejected the legitimacy of demands for a divorce bill.
During an “intense” discussion, UK officials read from an 11-page document which included 47 paragraphs outlining the UK’s opposition to the bill, the Telegraph reported on Thursday.
This was centred on the refusal of the EU to discuss the bloc’s future relationship with the UK before three issues had been concluded: the divorce bill, the rights of European Union citizens in the country, and the Irish border.
The UK has now argued this refusal to progress to other issues, such as trade and the future relationship between the union and the UK after Brexit, is not legitimate.
One EU source told the paper: “There was total amazement. Everyone was completely flabbergasted that this young man from Whitehall was saying that the EU’s preparation on the financial settlement was ‘inadequate’. It did not go down well.”