Denmark’s prime minister, Lars Loekke Rasmussen, urged his European Union colleagues to ensure that the U.K. doesn’t end up with a competitive edge when it leaves the bloc. “We need to be extremely careful that the side that leaves doesn’t get particular competitive advantages on its way out,” Rasmussen, 52, told Bloomberg after speaking at an event outside Copenhagen on Thursday. “We all want a peaceful divorce, but when you agree to part ways—and in this situation, only one side wants to part ways—then we need to protect our own interests first.” The ultimate aim should be to keep the single market intact and to keep Britain as close to the EU as possible, Rasmussen said. The disconnect between what the U.K. wants and what the EU is willing to give appears to be growing wider by the day. Britain’s goal of somehow limiting the free movement of labor without losing access to the single market looks increasingly far fetched. Tomas Prouza, the Czech state secretary for EU affairs, last week went as far as to call the U.K.’s current proposals “completely unrealistic.” In Sweden, Prime Minister Stefan Loefven has warned the U.K. against pursuing an “aggressive” agenda that includes corporate tax cuts. In an interview with Bloomberg last month, Loefven said that such policies would only sour relations between Britain and the EU. Denmark has signaled it may use the U.K.’s exit from the EU as an opportunity to press its own agenda. In particular, Rasmussen’s government is keen to restrict access to the country’s costly welfare system for EU migrants. EU leaders are set to discuss Brexit again during a summit in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Sept. 16. It will be the first such event since the U.K. joined the bloc in 1973 at which the country won’t be represented.