Bruno Maçães, the former Europe Minister of Portugal, pointed out that while Brussels was willing to agree free trade deals with Canada and the US, it has failed to keep the same attitude with the UK.
Instead, Britain has faced a frosty Michel Barnier who has all-out refused to make any similar trade deal with his counterpart David Davis at this stage of exit negotiations.
Mr Maçães suggested the contradiction makes it seems as if there is one rule for Britain after Brexit and another for the rest of the world fuelling specualtion Brussels is determined to punish the UK.
He said: “There’s a contradiction in EU position that UK has not detected or used.
“For years it has stated that advantages of single market can be enjoyed outside – as part of Global Europe.
“Neighbourhood countries for example are meant to eventually enjoy all benefits besides institutions.
“And in negotiations with US for TTIP the goal was frictionless trade, just the goal which is now announced as impossible for UK.
“For example: difficult to understand EU would rule out mutual recognition as a matter of principle. It’s on the table in its trade deals.
“Mutual recognition is part of CETA and yet Barnier just ruled it out of future UK-EU relationship.”
He later tweeted: “So the EU has been quite unreasonable. Where I disagree with Brexiteers: it kind of has the right to be unreasonable.”
Britain’s exit negotiations with the EU this week failed to make the kind of progress needed to open talks on their future relationship in October, Mr Barnier said.
He told reporters after talks in Brussels the two sides managed to agree on some technical clarifications and recognised that discussions on the Ireland border had been “fruitful”, but no decisive progress had been made on the main subjects.
And he said: ”We are quite far from being able to say that sufficient progress has taken place, sufficient for me to be able to recommend to the European Council that it engage in discussions on the future relationship between the UK and EU.”
Mr Barnier scolded London for demanding “the impossible” in position papers released last week, including having a say on the EU’s single-market rules even after it’s outside the union.