BRUSSELS. Protocol machismo, humiliation of the female guest and at the same time of the institution that leads, the European Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, and of legality, perhaps judged with less regard than governments. Or perhaps as a fully communitarian body, and not an intergovernmental one, unwelcome to those who have now seen the doors of the Union shut in their faces. There is all this in the “sofa gate”, in the treatment that the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reserved yesterday to Ursula von der Leyen during the visit to Ankara by the number one of the Eurogroup together with the chairman of the European Council, the former Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. The official video of the meeting says it all.
Turkey, Erdogan receives von der Leyen and Michel: but there is no chair for the president
Erdogan receives the two Europeans to relaunch relations between the EU and Turkey. After passing the guard of honor and crossing the entrance of the new sumptuous presidential palace in Ankara, Erdogan welcomes guests in the richly decorated hall dedicated to the ritual photos. Too bad that there are only two chairs waiting for the three. After the first shots standing up, Erdogan makes Michel sit on one of the two chairs and takes his place on the other. Von der Leyen remains standing, dumbfounded, visibly embarrassed. It emits an almost guttural “ahem” to signal discomfort. Michel remains of salt, he does not have the readiness to react. Von der Leyen is thus made to sit on a side sofa at least three meters from the two males, in front of the Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu, whose rank in the protocol is decidedly lower than that of the president of the European Commission. Whose posture in the seat despite the impeccable elegance still signals discomfort.
Technically, it could be said that Erdogan wanted to reserve the rank of head of government for Michel since he leads the sessions of the European Council, precisely the leaders of the heads of state and government of the Union. But in no chancellery in the world would the president of the Commission – the community executive – be considered inferior. Rather. A rigid application of the protocol, the Turkish one, which clearly hides a political signal from Erdogan.
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“Von der Leyen was clearly surprised, you can see it in the video, but she preferred to prioritize matters of substance over protocol”, commented the spokesperson.
of the European Commission Eric Mamer specifying however that the Commission “expects to be treated according to the appropriate protocol” and that “
with all the parties involved so that this situation does not happen again in the future “.
The European People’s Party, the political family of Von der Leyen, attacks: “Let’s set the record straight. Someone should be ashamed of the lack of a suitable place for Ursula von der Leyen in Erdogan’s palace. The EU has signaled the open to dialogue, but we are firm on our values. Women deserve the same recognition as their male colleagues “. The head of the delegation of the Democratic Party to the European Parliament, Brando Benifei, also takes it out on the liberal Michel: “President Von der Leyen left without a chair by Erdogan should have gone, thus avenging Turkish women, whose rights are today under attack. Shameful is the attitude of Charles Michel who does not seem to have lifted a finger.
Sofa-gate, when Erdogan met Junker in 2015 and made him sit next to him
Only late in the evening Michel gives his version via Facebook: the rude was the result of “a rigorous interpretation by the Turkish of the protocol rules” which “produced a disheartening situation: the differentiated or even diminished treatment of the president of the European Commission” . The images, he adds, “gave the impression that I would have been insensitive to the situation. Nothing could be further from reality and my feelings. At the moment, while perceiving the deplorable nature of the situation, we have chosen not to aggravate it with a public accident” .
The mission of Michel and von der Leyen had been studied by the prime ministers and the heads of the institutions of the Union to relaunch relations between the EU and Turkey under the banner of a new “positive agenda”. In summary, Erdogan must continue with the de-escalation in the Eastern Mediterranean, avoid new provocations towards Cyprus and Greece, refrain from further threats on migrants and cooperate in Libya. If he stays on the right track, erasing the tensions of 2020 that also led to EU sanctions against Ankara, at the June summit the Europeans will repay him with a new tranche of money to host the 3.6 million Syrian refugees on his territory after the 6 billion check issued in 2016, with a deeper Customs Union for the benefit of the Turkish economy and with a new visa policy. A normalization of relations between Europe and its cumbersome neighbor, for better or for worse, as well as a fundamental NATO partner. A strategy that the EU, moreover, shares with Joe Biden’s US administration.
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To formalize this new positive agenda, Europeans (like Americans) are also calling for an improvement in human rights in Turkey. It was von der Leyen on behalf of the capitals – troubled by the event – stressed that Erdogan’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention against violence against women and domestic violence “is a wrong signal”. A recall was expected in Ankara, given the controversy over the past weeks between Europe and Turkey over the Convention. Perhaps by relegating the sixty-two-year-old German, Angela Merkel’s former defense minister and first female president of the European Commission to the beige sofa, the Sultan immediately wanted to make her understand how he sees women in his home. As if to say, it can also refrain from drilling in the territorial waters of Cyprus or from relaunching landings in Greece, but it does not accept external interference on rights.
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