The European Commission has not been getting a good press. Reports of corruption and incompetence, perhaps exaggerated, of parliamentary votes of no confidence, of commissioners on the brink of resigning, or not resigning, have all combined in recent weeks to put enormous pressures on the public face of the Commission, its Spokesman Service.

And, for some of this embattled band, the press, their very raison d'etre, has become the enemy. Evidence of the existence of an extraordinary siege mentality at the heart of the European Commission emerged this week in Brussels with the accidental leaking of an exceedingly tactless draft memo on media strategy for the "crisis".

Revealing an almost paranoid sense of "us and them" the memo suggested a communication strategy based on doling out information sparingly and with dollops of "cynicism and sometimes hypocrisy". It was scarcely conducive to rebuilding trust, but then it was never supposed to get out.

Instead of handling the story, suddenly the service was the story.

Not that they are unused to the rough and tumble of huge media blitzes, as both Irish spokesmen can testify.

In Agriculture, Gerry Kiely's blunt good humour, patience and encyclopaedic knowledge of the most arcane elements of his dossier saw him through the horrors of the BSE saga.

And Padraig Flynn's spokeswoman, Barbara Nolan, never flinched from the British press barrage over EU social policy and deflected with ease and expertise the rage of tobacco companies at advertising restrictions.

But in recent weeks episodic crises have given way in the Spokesman Service and Commission itself to a sense of generalised continuous crisis and continuous war with an unreasonable, unreasoning press corps.

The memo, written by an anonymous member of the service, subsequently identified as embattled Edith Cresson's man Jimmy Jamar, acknowledges the need for "urgent action" in the face of the horrendous publicity the Commission has been receiving and calls on the highly ill-disciplined service to close ranks.

The practice of commissioners' individual spokesmen briefing against each other has to stop, says the memo, entitled "Commentary on the current situation".

And its urges spokesmen to be what a British cabinet secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, once termed economical with the truth in not releasing too much information to journalists.

Sources say the confidential draft memo was left on a photocopier and then accidentally stapled into the back of a public report from the Court of Justice for general distribution.

The chief spokeswoman of the Commission, Martine Reichert, has insisted that it is merely an internal service discussion document aimed at contributing to collective internal brainstorming about the future of the service. It does not reflect a departmental view, and certainly not an official Commission position.

Well, maybe not. And yet the memo certainly chimes with what many in the press room see as a preoccupation in the service with shooting the messenger rather than accepting that some of the message is unpalatable. There are persistent reports of attempts by commissioners or their aides to discredit groups of journalists involved in investigative pieces about corruption and incompetence.

And the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, has complained of a conspiracy against him in the Belgian press, while Ms Cresson is reported to have attributed the stories against her to a far-right anti-Jewish plot (she is not Jewish but some of her Cabinet are).

On transparency, supposedly a core value of the Commission, the service is advised by the leaked memo not to be "more Catholic than the Pope".

"A dose of cynicism - and sometimes hypocrisy - is sometimes necessary in diffusing information," the memo says. "Attempting to explain everything, to set oneself up as a model of exhaustiveness on a subject, only invites further queries.

"An excess of information can lead to disinformation. And so it is necessary to learn how to conceal information of which one is not altogether sure or which might give rise to wrong interpretation. In the face of some particularly cunning journalists, unfortunately it will be necessary [for the time being] to bite one's tongue."

The spokesmen and women are encouraged to "talk to journalists, even the most virulent" to explain patiently the Commission's point of view. Indeed, some might say that is their job.

Such an exercise "will certainly be a longterm project, but it is the only way to get out [of the mess]."

That, the memo suggests, also requires the Spokesman Service to close ranks and for each member to sing from the same hymn sheet.

Journalists have not changed, the paper says, although the muckrakers seem to have taken over the press room. "But it is wrong to say we have no friends. On the contrary, many journalists are perplexed and some openly disapprove of their colleagues' behaviour," it says.

And in a suggestion that has proved deeply offensive, even to friends of the Commission, the memo suggests that the counteroffensive should also involve getting the International Press Association (API), the representative body of the Brussels press corps, to deal with disinformation in the press and take its responsibilities seriously as a "regulator".

The truth is, of course, that there is a grain of truth in all paranoia. Journalists do lose sight of the big picture: the successful launch of the euro, the opening of negotiations on accession with six more countries, the work on Agenda 2000 . . . And the whiff of scandal draws us like wolves to fresh blood.

But the big picture in Brussels is also that times are changing. Croneyism and patronage were no more endemic than they were in national capitals, but they are no more tolerable here now than they are in national capitals.