It is already known as the ‘Sofagate’. The images have gone around the world. A stunned President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is left without a chair during the visit with the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, last Tuesday in Ankara. Despite usually receiving the same formal treatment as Michel abroad, the first president of the Commission, and the only woman in the room, ends up sitting on a side sofa, as does the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut. Cavusoglu, with a clearly lower rank.
The incident has left Michel very badly off, who only cared about sitting in the available chair next to Erdogan. Also to the Turkish hosts, accused of being sexist, just when the EU is pressuring Turkey for women’s rights. And, once again, it conveys a poor image of the EU in the big events beyond its borders, just two months after the humiliating visit of its High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, to Moscow.
As elEconomista learned after consulting with three community sources, who did not want to identify themselves due to the sensitivity of the issue, the origin of the problem was in Von der Leyen’s own cabinet.
His closest team, headed by his chief of staff Bjoern Seibert, did not consider it “necessary” for the Commission’s protocol services to get involved in the preparation of this trip. The surprise is capitalized among the sources consulted, given the importance of the visit to Turkey, at a very sensitive moment in the bilateral relationship and the well-known complexity of dealing with Erdogan. If all the details on high-ranking visits matter, more was the case on this trip, especially the one-on-one with the Turkish president.
“Von der Leyen’s cabinet was very naive,” summarizes a community charge. The sources consulted explain that the protocol services, especially the advanced teams, are in charge of preparing all the choreography to the millimeter and detecting any last-minute problems, to ensure that their dignitary occupies the place and receives the treatment that corresponds to him.
The surprise is greater because Von der Leyen also continued his trip to Jordan, where he met with King Abdullah II, without any formal accompaniment.
The European Commission’s chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, explained on Wednesday that the Commission’s protocol services were not involved due to “covid restrictions”. This Thursday she added that the president and her team “are very strict” regarding the size of the delegations on the trips, since they are not vaccinated. “The president is taking all necessary precautions to minimize the health risk,” he explained. Mamer indicated that “we have a delegation on the ground” and “the preparations were made through that channel.”
No one from the delegation
However, the EU delegation in Turkey was also not part of the preparations, according to an internal note from the Council’s general secretariat, dated April 7, in which they explain what happened before the leaders’ meeting.
The document, to which elEconomista had access, indicates that the day before the meeting, a preparatory meeting took place between Erdogan’s protocol service and the Council’s protocol team (of Michel). However, “the EU delegation, which had organized the meeting, was not present, with the exception of a regional security officer.”
The note adds that the Commission’s protocol service, “which is generally in charge of the missions carried out by the President of the Commission”, was also absent, although a security officer from Von der Leyen’s team participated.
In this preparatory meeting, Erdogan’s team showed part of the palace where the visit would take place. However, they were unable to access the controversial meeting room, “despite our requests,” the Council notes in its note, because it was considered to be very close to Erdogan’s office.
“If the face-to-face room had been visited, we would have suggested to our hosts that, as a courtesy, they replace the sofa with two armchairs for the President of the Commission,” adds the Council.
The community sources consulted consider it a “huge mistake” not only that Von der Leyen’s team did not involve the Commission’s protocol, but also that no one from the delegation participated in the visit the day before.
Regarding the limitations on the size of the mission group imposed by covid, they explain that an advance team would not necessarily have had to travel in the circle closest to the president. And they add that members of the general secretariat who were not essential were also part of the Commission’s delegation.
The sources explain that the Council asked about the distribution of seats in the face-to-face meeting, and that its hosts noted the place of the two presidents with the president of the Commission next to them, without going into more details.
Criticism from the European Parliament
The embarrassing images of Tuesday have caused a huge stir in Brussels. In the European Parliament, many MEPs have asked for explanations. Some, like the Liberal MEP Sophia in’t Veld, have already asked the Community Executive why their protocol services were not physically present.
The Turkish government, for its part, has considered “unfair” the criticism directed against its country. His foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said on Thursday that “seating arrangements were made in accordance with the EU suggestion. Period.”
Insisting on why the Commission did not involve its protocol services and blindly trusted the preparations of Michel’s team, the Commission’s chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, replied that we are “team Europe”.
However, the sources consulted agree that the protocol services are concerned that their own institution or dignitary is represented as it should be, and therefore it was not the job of the Council to ensure how the president of the Commission would be represented.
management problem
The discomfort that this new blunder has caused within the Commission comes just two months after the blunder in the design of the mechanism for the authorization of the export of vaccines, which almost blew up stability in Northern Ireland.
The sources consulted point out that, as happened on that occasion, the error has been the same again: the centralism of Von der Leyen’s Praetorian Guard, specifically his chief of staff, Bjoern Seibert, which aggravates the skids that produced by their ignorance on some fronts.
If in the case of the authorization mechanism a clause was introduced at the last minute without consulting those responsible for trade or even the Irish commissioner, Mairead McGuinness, in this case Seibert and his closest team, bordered on their protocol services, despite the relevance of the visit and the complexity of the details that had to be managed.
Following the mistake with Northern Ireland, von der Leyen apologized and said lessons would be learned. This time, his chief spokeswoman has said that the president wants what happened to be analyzed, so that similar events do not happen on the next visit. “There was an incident, she agreed, but the president decided to continue the meeting anyway and express her point of view. This is what we should focus on, relations with Turkey.”
The Council’s internal note explains that, according to the Treaties and the agreement between the institutions, the protocol on trips abroad makes a distinction between the rank of Head of State, which is held by the President of the European Council (Michel) and the position of prime minister, who occupies the president of the Commission (Von der Leyen). “This could have been the source of the error,” the note adds. However, von der Leyen’s spokesman argued that the three presidents should have sat “exactly on the same level”.
For his part, Michel made an effort on Wednesday night to clean up his image after the bad place in which he was left after the incident. He wrote on Facebook that he was “saddened” because the images gave the impression that he was “indifferent to the formal clumsiness” of the Turks, which in his opinion is not true. And without apologizing for what happened, he justified his attitude by saying that, like Von der Leyen, “we chose not to make it worse with a public incident”, and privilege the substance of the meeting.