It was the snout that was seen around the world – and now it can have serious consequences. After the President of the European Council left his female colleague without a seat during a meeting with the Turkish President, a petition was created requesting him to resign.
It started when European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. During the meeting, Michel and Erdoğan take the only two available chairs, and let von der Leyen stand and then find a seat elsewhere – after appearing dissatisfied.
The video of the incident quickly went viral – though not just for its inconvenience, due to the apparent sexism. It has since been called ‘Sofagate’, but a group of dozens of groups and leaders of women activists say it has serious consequences.
In a letter to Michel, the group of women called the seat a mistake against democracy, the European Union and women’s rights – and they asked Michel to resign.
The letter contains a list of the three important mistakes Michel made when he left von der Leyen standing during the meeting with Erdoğan.
Handout
First, the group said, Michel and von der Leyen were on an equal diplomatic level and Erdoğan set a trap by presenting only one other seat during a three-person meeting.
“And you, M. Michel, you rushed to this seat, almost lying down so badly that you wanted to occupy it,” reads the letter. “Faced with Mrs Von der Leyen’s dismay, you did not struggle, you wanted to sit to the right of Mr Erdoğan.”
According to the group, Michel could have invited the woman to sit, or could have stayed with her. “You kept quiet,” they said.
While Mrs. Von der Leyen could stand or leave, ‘she chose not to aggravate the incident’ and sat on a bench nearby, ‘no matter how angry’, the letter explained.
“The dictator has meanwhile watched your game and scored his points,” the group said, referring to Erdoğan. “You gave him this unhealthy pleasure by falling so heavily into his snare.”
The second reason why Michel was wrong, the group says, was that his ‘thoughtless attitude’ was detrimental to all citizens of the European Union, giving the dictator an image of internal conflict, weakness of intelligence and reaction of the president of his Council, at a time when the issue of Turkey’s accession to Europe is a serious and unresolved debate. ‘
The group calls it ‘pathetic’ and says instead of admitting that he was wrong and that he falls for the ‘trap’ set by the Turkish president, Michel complained.
“If #sexism and #misogyny can still exist today, it is because witnesses remain silent or because they benefit from this disqualification of women,” the leader said.
Finally, Erdoğan announced in March that Turkey “will withdraw from the Convention of the Council of Europe on the prevention and combating of all violence against women and domestic violence,” the group said.
“By ostensibly taking leadership as a man above a woman who is politically equal to you, you are giving the dictator reinforcement over the pressure he wants to impose on women and girls from Turkey, fifteen days after the authoritarian decision he made to violating gender equality, implicitly authorizing all violence against women and children in Turkey, ”the group wrote.
After the incident, Michel said he was “saddened by any suggestion that I could be indifferent to the erroneous protocol regarding Ursula,” BBC News reported. He said the impression that he was “indifferent” to the situation was wrong and that nothing could have been further from the truth, according to BBC News.
In the letter, the group criticized Michel’s apology and started a petition for his resignation, which was signed by more than 10,000 people as of Tuesday.
Leaders of women’s groups such as the Millennia2025 Women and Innovation Foundation and the International Law League of Women, took part in the letter sent to Michel on Tuesday. The group also sends a copy to von der Leyen, who is the first female president of the European Commission.
Before the letter was written, several women leaders addressed ‘Sofagate’ in public and criticized Michel and Erdoğan’s handling of the situation. Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, said it was a “deliberate” minor who questioned von der Leyen’s’ equal treatment’, adding that it was no coincidence that she was the only woman in the meeting, did she tweet.
Iratxe García Pérez, leader of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, also shared the “Sofagate” video on Twitter and wrote: ‘They first withdrew from the Istanbul Convention and now they are leaving the President of the European Commission without visiting a seat in an official. Shameful. #WomensRights. “
In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblat last week, Michel said if possible, he would go back and rectify the situation, reports Reuters. “I make no secret of the fact that I haven’t slept well since, because the scenes keep playing in my head,” Michel said.
Turkey said the chamber had been set up in this way at the request of the EU. However, EU Council minutes chief Dominique Marro said his team did not have access to the room where the incident took place before the meeting, reports The Associated Press.
“If the room had been visited for the tête-à-tête, we would have had to suggest to our hosts that they replace the bench with two armchairs for the President of the Commission,” Marro wrote in a note in which, according to the AP, made by the EU Council.