Commission bans the B-word… (Psst! It’s ‘Brexit’)

Officials are told to avoid the term in discussing the UK referendum on EU membership.

The European Commission has banned its communications staff from publicly using the word “Brexit” in the run-up to Britain’s referendum on EU membership, officials told POLITICO.

Officials received a memo from the Commission’s directorate-general for communications in May outlining ways to avoid using the word “Brexit” when referring to the vote on June 23 when Britons will decide whether to leave the EU. The memo followed up on a series of meetings earlier this year in which communications officials in the Commission’s various departments were told they could not use the word publicly.

Instead, the officials said, staff have been encouraged to use the terms “British situation” or “British referendum.” Officials told POLITICO they still use the “Brexit” term in internal meetings. The ban does not cover commissioners themselves, who sometimes still utter the B-word.

A memo on the Commission “Line to Take” on the issue — obtained by POLITICO — was e-mailed to communications officials in the EU executive body’s various directorate generals.

Among those lines:

• “It is for the British people to decide if they want the U.K. to remain a member of the European Union.”
• “It is the Commission’s sincere wish that the U.K. remains in the EU. More than ever, we want Europe to remain unified.”
• “But the Commission will not take part in the U.K.’s referendum campaign.”
• “We believe that the package of reforms agreed for the U.K. at the European Council on 19 February is a fair one: it is fair for the U.K., fair for the other Member States and fair for the EU as a whole. It responds to the concerns of the U.K. and respects basic principles of our Union.”
• If asked about what will happen if the U.K. votes to leave: The Commission does not speculate on hypothetical situations. The Commission does not want to enter into the details of plan B, because we do not have a plan B, we have a plan A: Britain should stay in the European Union as a constructive and active member of the EU.

The Commission spokesperson’s service has managed to avoid the word “Brexit” at its daily midday briefings, with officials referring to the vote only as the U.K. referendum. The term “Brexit” does not appear as a search result on the Commission’s internal video server since February 2016, when it was referred to as a political term in relation to a summit on reforms aimed at avoiding a Brexit. During that meeting, EU officials also avoided using the term, favoring the hashtag #UKinEU on social media.

Interestingly the Commission used the term “Brexit” — in brackets — as a shortcut in its talking points memo to give an example to officials of how Juncker communicates on the issue without saying it.

“[Brexit would] surely have unforeseeable consequences on European cooperation, about which I absolutely do not wish to speculate because I am convinced that Britons will make the reasonable decision. All Europeans want Britain to remain in the family,” the memo quotes Juncker as saying at a panel debate in Rome on May 5.

Juncker did use the term in a press conference at the June 2015 G7 summit in Germany, but avoided it at this year’s gathering in Japan. The U.K.’s member of the European Commission, Jonathan Hill, also had no qualms about using the term as recently as May 23 in an interview with ITV.

In an interview Tuesday with POLITICO, Commissioner Pierre Moscovici let the word slip out. “We have to negotiate with the British in order to avoid a Brexit, and we’re also trying to play our role to convince the British people to vote for the remain,” he said.

“Whilst colloquial terms like ‘Grexit’ or ‘Brexit’ have obviously made it into the public discourse, in the Commission services we prefer using accurate terminology,” said Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein. “But we don’t do language policing here, and our Commissioners are certainly free to use any term they want in their political communication.”