Protocol violated by conscious and sexist choice or gaffe? Everything seems to depend on the first hypothesis: from the fame of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, certainly not very positive with regard to gender equality (and, broadening, human rights), to the importance of the meeting, one of those where no it is absolutely possible to “go wrong”.
Here are the facts. On 6 April, EU leaders are visiting Ankara, in the presence of Erdogan. Official meeting with the Turkish president; guests: the president of the EU Council, Charles Michel, and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. If the former was made to sit, as per protocol rules, on the armchairs with the flags behind him, von der Leyen was denied this formal act. The scene is resumed in a video that has gone viral and that you find at the opening of the article, where you can also sense the disappointment of von der Leyen while the other two take a seat in the armchairs. In the next scene we see the president of the EU Commission sitting on a sofa placed to the right of the interlocutors.
The fact quickly traveled the media and especially social media, where it was renamed “sofagate”. An official complaint also came through the spokesman of the European Commission Eric Mamer who, replying to journalists, said: von der Leyen “clearly she was surprised, you can see it in the video, but she preferred to give priority to matters of substance over the protocol”. But it does not end here: Mamer himself also added that the Commission “expects to be treated according to the appropriate protocol” and that “contacts will be made with all the parties involved because [il fatto] does not happen again in the future “. (f.s.)
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