Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Why is Ursula von der Leyen still talking about Sofagate?

(Credit: BBC)

Almost a month has passed since the now infamous ‘sofa-gate’ incident where, during a meeting with Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan, Ursula von der Leyen was not provided with a chair. Instead she was forced to sit on a nearby sofa. And yet it is this event – rather than Europe’s ongoing vaccine woes – that seems to be at the forefront of the president of the European Commission’s thoughts.

Von der Leyen used a speech given to the European Parliament to reiterate accusations of sexism over sofa-gate. The president did everything she could to drive home her feminist message, concluding that: 

‘I am the president of the European commission. And this is how I expected to be treated when visiting Turkey two weeks ago, like, a commission president – but I was not.’

Do EU citizens really want to hear their president moaning about these sorts of political micro aggressions?

You only need to imagine a man saying those words to realise how grating they actually are. Strip away the guise of feminism and what’s left is a remark that smacks more of hubris than a genuine cry of discrimination.

What von der Leyen doesn’t seem to realise is that bringing up this diplomatic faux pas again a month after it occurred betrays just how vast the gulf is between her priorities as a world leader and those of ordinary Europeans. Or, indeed, women.

It’s hard for the sisterhood to feel much sympathy for an individual who has risen seamlessly to the top of her profession (and, as Katja Hoyer points out, has largely failed upwards) and whose case for discrimination amounts to having to sit on a rather palatial sofa as opposed to a chair.

What’s more, this diplomatic quibble is taking place against a backdrop of a global pandemic in which Europe is hardly faring well.

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