Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May stands with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker at the front door of 10 Downing Street on April 26, 2017 in London | Cart Court/Getty Images Brexit Files Insight Brussels’ Brexit strategy: Leak early, leak often One woman’s breach of confidence is another man’s transparency in government.

So does European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker think it was important to disclose details of a dinner with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May because some in Britain “underestimate the technical difficulties” of Brexit, as he told reporters in April? Or does the wily former prime minister of Luxembourg think it was a “grave mistake” that private discussions at the dinner made it into the press, as was reported this week?

The answer is: yes.

Juncker and his senior Brexit team, including chief of staff Martin Selmayr and the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, took the decision that details of the dinner with May had to be disclosed because, as one official put it, the U.K. prime minister at times seemed to be “in a different galaxy.” But they also wish May hadn’t gotten so angry about it.

At 7:30 on the morning after the dinner, Juncker personally telephoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel, prompting her to issue her own reality check to the U.K. in a speech later that day. Diplomats from the 27 EU countries received a similar briefing. The fallout from those disclosures was brutal: A furious May lashed out, accusing Brussels of meddling in the British election.

If Juncker was feeling regret about hurting May’s feelings, he certainly didn’t show it in Florence late last week, where he delivered a speech in French after declaring that English is "losing importance" in Europe.

At the same time, Juncker and his team never wanted the negotiations to be contentious, or at least not this contentious. And so there has been a concerted effort to dial down the tension by describing the “leaks” around the dinner as a mistake.

What they regret aren’t the leaks themselves, rather that the disclosures were necessary in the first place. Juncker himself called the leaks a “grave mistake” only after Der Spiegel reporting some tsk-tsking over the disclosures by Merkel, attributed to unnamed officials in the chancellor’s office.

One woman’s leaky breach of confidence, however, is another man’s transparency in government. And if there is a moral to the story for senior EU officials it is that their first instinct was the correct one: When it comes to Brexit, leak early and leak often and thereby control the narrative.

Brussels wants full disclosure and transparency when it comes to the Brexit talks. This is not because the officials who run the European institutions have suddenly found new merit in openness. Brussels remains a place where official spokespersons — public servants paid high salaries by taxpayers to provide information — routinely refuse to be quoted by name and often act as if every morsel they provide to reporters is a grand gesture of personal charity.

On the contrary, officials recognize that with every EU country keenly invested in the Brexit talks, trying to keep information confidential — as the U.K. has demanded — is an exercise in futility.

The only way to control the message, in the view of EU officials, is to put information out on their own terms, accompanied by their own spin.

This insight is from POLITICO's Brexit Files newsletter, a daily afternoon digest of the best coverage and analysis of Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Read today’s edition or subscribe here.