A SENIOR MEP who has said it would be wrong for Scotland to be taken out of the EU has been named as one of the top Brexit negotiators on the European team.

Guy Verhofstadt’s appointment is a major boost for the First Minister’s fight to protect the country’s position in the bloc, but a blow to Theresa May’s who has indicated Scotland will not have any special status in the exiting process.

Alyn Smith last night welcomed the role being given to the former Belgian Prime Minister as the lead Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament.

“Guy Verhofstadt has demonstrated he is very alive to Scotland’s cause. He is a person who understands that Scotland voted to remain in the EU and expects something different out of these negotiations,” he said.

The SNP MEP who works alongside Verhofstadt closely at Brussels, added: “I am heartened that he has been appointed to represent the European Parliament in these discussions.”

Verhofstadt will have a significant influence in the negotiations and also on his fellow MEPs when they come to vote on the final Brexit deal when it comes before the European Parliament.

The politician met the First Minister when she travelled to Brussels days after the referendum when the UK as a whole voted to leave, but Scots voted by 62 per cent to stay.

Days after the EU vote, he tweeted: “It’s wrong that Scotland might be taken out of EU when it voted to stay. Happy to discuss with Nicola Sturgeon.”

In a television interview he said there would be “no big obstacle” to an independent Scotland joining the EU before Brexit.

Asked if an independent Scotland could successfully join the EU before the UK leaves, he replied: “I think this possibility has to exist. Because if Scotland decides to leave the UK, to be an independent state, and they decide to be part of the European Union I think there is no big obstacle to do that.”

Verhofstadt, who leads the the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe parliamentary group in Brussels, yesterday said it was an “honour” to take the role “which will play a central role in an Article 50 deal and any future EU-UK agreements.”

Earlier yesterday Donald Tusk called on Theresa May to begin formal negotiations on leaving the European Union as soon as possible.

Speaking before Downing Street talks, at which the pair discussed Britain’s future relationship with the other 27 EU member states, the president of the European Council urged the Prime Minister to press ahead with triggering article 50 of the Lisbon treaty.

EU leaders will meet in Bratislava next week – without Britain – to consider the way forward and there is growing irritation that Britain has not yet started the formal process of leaving the bloc.

Tusk made clear the other members states could make little progress until article 50 had been triggered.

“It doesn’t mean that we are going to discuss our future relations with the UK in Bratislava, because for this – and especially for the start of the negotiations – we need the formal notification, I mean triggering article 50,” he said.

“This is the position shared by all 27 member states.

“To put it simply, the ball is now in your court.”

May came under fire from the SNP’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson in the House of Commons on Wednesday after she refused to say whether she would try to keep the UK in the single market insisting her government would not give a “running commentary” on the issue.

It is unclear whether May believes Britain can remain a member of the single market after leaving.

The Brexit secretary, David Davis, who was asked if Britain could remain inside the single market, said earlier this week: “The simple truth is that if a requirement of membership is giving up control of our borders, I think that makes it very improbable.”

But the Prime Minister’s spokeswoman later indicated that Davis was “setting out his opinion” rather than making a statement of government policy.

WHO IS GUY VERHOFSTADT?

Guy Verhofstadt, 62, is a Flemish Belgian politician, who served as the 47th Prime Minister of Belgium from 1999 to 2008.

Over the summer he has been highly critical of David Cameron and Brexiteers Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. “The Brexiteers, they remind me of rats fleeing a sinking ship,” he said in July

“Cameron resigned, Johnson abandoned and Farage wants more time for himself and his family to spend his European salary,” he told a European Parliament meeting in Strasbourg the day after Ukip leader Nigel Farage stepped down as party chief. On hearing that Boris Johnson has been made Foreign Secretary, he said: “Clearly British humour has no borders.”

He defeated the Socialists and Christian Democrats and was the first liberal Prime Minister in the country since 1884.

Since 2009 he has served as a Member of the European Parliament where he is the leader of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and founded the inter-parliamentarian federalist Spinelli Group.