Fogbow

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Tuesday with the European Union’s two presidents, but an awkward moment when the woman among them was left standing caused a bit of a diplomatic stir.

A video of the leaders assembled in an ornate meeting room in Ankara showed Erdogan and European Council President Charles Michel settling themselves into gilded chairs, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appeared unsure of where she was expected to sit.

Von der Leyen stood staring at them, gestured with her right hand and appeared to say “um” or “ehm.”

She was ultimately offered a beige couch about 12 feet away, opposite Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who occupies a lower-status rank in typical diplomatic protocol.

Von der Leyen “was clearly surprised and that is something which you can see from the video,” her spokesman Eric Mamer said Wednesday, confirming the displeasure of the leader who is the first woman to hold her role. She “should have been seated in exactly the same manner as the president of the European Council and the Turkish president.”

“The Fudan University affair is our first step in retaking Hungary from those in power,” Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony said at a demonstration against the establishment of a local campus of China’s Fudan University in front of Parliament on Saturday.

Karácsony, who is running in the opposition’s prime ministerial primary, vowed to block the establishment of the Fudan University campus and to take action on any issue in which the government “favours the privileged 1 percent over the 99 percent”.

“The biggest problem in Hungary today are those in power who don’t have any moral goals,” the mayor said.

“The Fudan affair is [ruling] Fidesz’s final and complete moral suicide,” he said. He said this issue proved that “every word of theirs is a lie” and that “nothing is sacred to them”.

AndyinPA wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 11:31 am https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/eu ... story.html

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Tuesday with the European Union’s two presidents, but an awkward moment when the woman among them was left standing caused a bit of a diplomatic stir.

A video of the leaders assembled in an ornate meeting room in Ankara showed Erdogan and European Council President Charles Michel settling themselves into gilded chairs, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen appeared unsure of where she was expected to sit.

Von der Leyen stood staring at them, gestured with her right hand and appeared to say “um” or “ehm.”

She was ultimately offered a beige couch about 12 feet away, opposite Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who occupies a lower-status rank in typical diplomatic protocol.

Von der Leyen “was clearly surprised and that is something which you can see from the video,” her spokesman Eric Mamer said Wednesday, confirming the displeasure of the leader who is the first woman to hold her role. She “should have been seated in exactly the same manner as the president of the European Council and the Turkish president.”

RTH10260 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 12:48 pm that is a yuuuge blunder and mistake - according the Brexit supporters the EU and the Eurozone is at the brink of collapse - any day now

Sam the Centipede wrote: ↑Sun Jan 01, 2023 1:51 pm

Off Topic

lOne hilarious proposal during the early part of the UK's Brexit debacle was hearing Brexiters suggest in all seriousness that Ireland should also leave the EU and join in all the imagined benefits: no need to look for pots of gold hidden by leprechauns at the end of rainbows when riches would be raining on all in the EU-less economic paradise that would ensue! As I recall the reaction of Irish politicians was similar to a parent dealing with their child babbling nonsense, a fond smile and amused indifference.