Gender equality issues took center stage Wednesday in Brussels a day after Ursula von der Leyen, one the EU’s most powerful executives, was treated like a second-rank official during a visit to Ankara.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, was left awkwardly standing as her colleague Charles Michel, the president of the council and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey took the only two available seats between the E.U. and Turkish flags.
She ended up propped up by cushions on a side sofa several feet away, and lower than the two men. Adding further insult, her position was mirrored on the other side of the room by Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, whom she outranks.
The diplomatic incident was abundantly commented on social media. European lawmaker Sophie in ’t Veld said “no, it wasn’t a coincidence, it was deliberate,” she wrote on Twitter, questioning why Michel remained “silent.”
The protocol mishap involving Ursula von der Leyen was cited by critics as symbolic of Turkey’s treatment of women. It also underlined divisions within the European Union.
Last month, Erdogan pulled Turkey out of a key European convention aimed at combatting violence against women, triggering criticism from EU officials. The move was a blow to Turkey’s women’s rights movement, which says domestic violence and murders of women are on the rise.
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