FILE PHOTO: Carsten Kengeter, CEO of Deutsche Boerse, attends the initial public offering of Scale at the Frankfurt stock exchange in Frankfurt, Germany, March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) - Deutsche Boerse DB1Gn.DE Chief Executive Carsten Kengeter said it is continuing preparations for a merger with the London Stock Exchange LSE.L, despite the LSE's refusal to sell its Italian MTS trading platform.

That decision plunged the 26 billion euro ($27.6 billion) deal into uncertainty, and Kengeter said on Wednesday the German group could continue on its own.

Speaking at the London School of Economics on Friday, he said work on the merger had not stopped.

“A process such as this has a very strong legal cooperation framework. If you don’t do those (certain) steps at a certain time then you are damaging the integrity of the process. So everyone is continuing to do their work, that’s absolutely clear,” he said. He said the date on which the merger would be confirmed or rejected by the European Commission was not yet set. “I think the date is still 3rd April. It could be earlier but it doesn’t have to be.”

EU competition officials had raised concerns over MTS.