Von der Leyen: SofaGate happened ‘because I am a woman’
In an impassioned address to MEPs, the first female president of the European Commission expressed how she felt “hurt and alone, as a woman and as a European” after the recent SofaGate incident in Turkey.
European Parliament Audiovisual: Ursula von der Leyen
27 Apr 2021
For the first time since the diplomatic gaffe in Ankara earlier this month, widely dubbed ‘SofaGate’, Ursula von der Leyen gave members of Parliament a raw insight into her feelings on the incident.
The diplomatic snub saw von der Leyen relegated to a sofa, while Council President Charles Michel and Turkish President Recep Erdoğan took their places on the two gilded chairs provided for the leaders in the centre of the room.
Monday, April 26, 2021
The United States (US) hosted the Leaders Summit on Climate this week, with transatlantic partners affirming commitments on reducing emissions and growing green, sustainable jobs. The United Kingdom (UK) and the US also focused on issues with respect to Russia, while the European Union (EU) published a legislative package related to sustainable finance and sustainable corporate reporting.
Meanwhile, the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine pause may be coming to an end, as European and American officials concluded the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks. While the White House has yet to weigh in on resuming J&J inoculations in the United States, the European Union looks to move forward with adding the vaccine to its supply.
United States Senators Jim Risch, Ron Johnson and Jeanne Shaheen have introduced a bipartisan resolution in support of the full implementation of Georgia’s April 19 agreement to end the political impasse in the country.
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EDITOR’s TAKE
“We have too many little Merkels, Macrons, and Orbans wandering around the EEAS corridors,” an EU diplomat told this author last summer amid heated discussions over whether the EU would slap sanctions on Belarus and Turkey.
We were sitting in one of the many coffee places around Rond-point Schuman in Brussels (yes, they were open then!), staring at the EU’s diplomatic headquarters, blissfully unaware of the crises to come in the months to follow.
Pick one of the recent crisis – or in fact, one of the best examples of Europe’s foreign policy muddle, Libya – and you will see that EU member states usually tend to go their own way on foreign policy. And this has started to show more often.