MIDDAY BRIEF, IN BRIEF

Today at Commission, ‘We do not Brexitize’

Commission suggests Theresa May’s attacks on Brussels were electioneering.

At the first European Commission midday press briefing since Theresa May launched an attack on Brussels — accusing European politicians and officials of deliberately seeking to sway the U.K.’s general election — the tone was noticeably calmer.

Chief spokesman Margaritis Schinas suggested that May’s anti-Brussels rhetoric was merely electioneering. “We are not naive,” he said. “At the moment there’s an election taking place in the U.K. People get excited when we have elections.”

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Schinas also invented a word, with “Brexitize” joining the likes of “paperology” and “leakology” in the made-up-by-the-Commission dictionary.

“We here in Brussels are rather busy with our policy work. We have too much on our plate,” Schinas said, adding that “we will not Brexitize our work.”

To illustrate that Brussels is not Brexit-obsessed, Schinas referenced remarks by Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff Martin Selmayr at a POLITICO Morgen Europa event on Wednesday in which he said his boss will not spend more than 30 minutes a week dealing with Brexit.

“This week it’s up,” Schinas said.

Schinas said it was not up to the Commission to provide analysis of the French presidential debate that took place between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen on Wednesday night. The debate was “for French voters, the only ones speaking this week are French voters. Not Brussels, not the European Commission,” he said.