As far as I know for the time being only financial institutions in EU are prohibited from using XMR, DASH and other privacy coins. Individual users are still allowed to use them as long as they are not transacting with the financial institutions.
If financial institutions, which include CEX, are prohibited from using XMR, DASH or transacting in the LN.
How is an individual supposed to access these crypto assets? (open question - I'm not currently looking forward to acquire any of these - curious about the legal aspect)
First thing, there is no such law, nobody is banning the sale of those coins it just asking the exchange to collect the information about the buyers, which they already do. Anther example of Binance getting it all wrong:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/binance-wrong-monero-zcash-privacy-coins
Second, it would work just as you can get a some Foie-Gras from in Germany, you buy it from some guy France
In this case you buy it from somebody else, it's just that if financial institution will eventually not be allowed to sell them to you, there is no proposed ban on private dealing whatsoever, and even that ban on privacy coins is not enforceable yet either.
EU prohibits financial institutions from working with privacy coins like XMR,.
Can you link to such directive?