Brexit: Juncker Says Reports of His Dinner with Theresa May ‘Untrue’

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has denied leaking an account of his working dinner with Theresa May, saying he is “really surprised” at what’s been reported.

“Nothing is true in all of this,” Mr Juncker said, adding the PM had not been “tired” as a German paper said.

Mrs May is about to update MPs following last week’s EU summit.

Before the summit, she held talks in Brussels with Mr Juncker in an attempt to move negotiations on.

Earlier her ex-adviser Nick Timothy accused EU official Martin Selmayr of being the source of an account in a German paper claiming Mrs May was politically weak and had “begged for help” at a dinner.

He claimed it showed “some in Brussels want no deal or a punitive one”.

Mr Selmayr denied involvement and said it was an attempt to “frame” the EU.

And asked by the BBC if he’d spoken to the German press, Mr Juncker said: “No, never. I am really surprised - if not shocked - about what has been written in the German press.

“And of course repeated by the British press. Nothing is true in all of this. I had an excellent working dinner with Theresa May. She was in good shape, she was not tired, she was fighting as is her duty, so everything for me was OK.”

The apparent leak of what happened in the dinner follows a similar incident in April, when Mrs May accused some in the EU of “meddling” in the general election campaign after details of a dinner between her and Mr Juncker in Downing Street appeared in the German press.

Downing Street said it had no comment on the latest reports and pointed out that both sides were of the view that the recent get-together had been “constructive and friendly”.

And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that although the tone of last week’s summit was “more positive” than he expected, he wanted the EU to “get on” with talks on trade.

The UK triggered the two year process of leaving the EU in March - which means that any agreement on the terms of leaving, and the future relationship, needs to be in place for 29 March 2019, which is the official date for Brexit to happen.

As discussion continues about what might happen when the UK leaves the EU, five leading business groups have joined forces to call for a swift agreement on a transitional deal in which firms can operate largely on the same basis as now.