EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Monday (26 April) blamed sexism for events earlier this month in Ankara, where she was relegated to a sofa during a meeting with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the presence of European Council president Charles Michel.
In unusually personal and passionate comments in the European Parliament, von der Leyen said "it happened because I am a woman".
In her most detailed account of the incident that became known as "Sofagate"...
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Eszter Zalan is a Hungarian journalist who worked for Brussels-based news portal EUobserver specialising in European politics, focusing on populism and Brexit.