Sofagate

thumb|The EU delegation is seated on the left side and the Turkish delegation on the right side.|375x375px Sofagate is a diplomatic protocol incident that happened during the visit of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European Council Charles Michel to Turkey in April 2021. When Michel and von der Leyen were to meet with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, there were only two chairs and two sofas in the room in which they were received. Michel then seated himself in the chair beside Erdoğan while von der Leyen was offered to take a seat on a sofa in the same room across the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. Michel as a man took the more prominent position than von der Leyen as a woman, despite both having the title President. Many commentators described the incident as sexist, as did von der Leyen herself. Later on, Çavuşoğlu called the accusations against Turkey "unfair", saying that the seating arrangement was made in accordance with the requests of the European side and added protocol officials always "meet and discuss the arrangement before each visit."

== Background == Ursula von der Leyen was the European Union's first female President of the European Commission. The fact that a woman became the successor of Jean-Claude Juncker was welcomed by him and other EU politicians.