It's the small gestures that often say more than a thousand words.
In any case, the seating arrangement at the meeting with Erdogan caused criticism on social media.
Ankara - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan * and EU leaders met in Ankara.
A delicate conversation.
A restart of a relationship is in the room.
There is also a lot of money involved.
Financial aid for refugees from Syria in Turkey.
Further conflicts are to be averted.
Turkey: seating arrangements at Erdogan's - President on the sofa
The seating arrangement at the meeting with Erdogan caused irritation and criticism on social media.
While a large chair was reserved for EU Council President Charles Michel next to the Turkish head of state, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was assigned a seat on a sofa some distance away from Erdogan and Michel during the conversation on Tuesday.
There she sat across from the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu, who also took part in the conversation.
Among other things, it was reminded on Twitter that the former EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was allowed to sit at eye level at meetings with Erdogan.
The Green Bundestag member Cem Özdemir commented: “Such signs are set by authoritarian oppressors & machos like #Putin, #Erdogan & Co deliberately.
(...) If you can put up with it, you don't have to.
In any case, you don't get respect from men like that! "
Turkey: meeting at eye level - EU refers to protocol-based hierarchy
The EU Commission pointed out that von der Leyen had used the meeting with Erdogan to hold a long and very open discussion with him about women's rights and Turkey's withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention for the Protection of Women and Children from Violence respectively.
Initially, however, there was no open criticism of the seating arrangement.
One reason is that Michel, as President of the European Council, is above the EU Commission President in the protocol order of precedence.
At the meeting with Erdogan on Tuesday, EU leaders wanted to explore a possible expansion of relations with Turkey.
The background to this is the decisions of the EU summit one and a half weeks ago.
With him, the EU heads of state and government had agreed to gradually expand relations with Turkey again.
With this decision, the EU wants to avert the escalation of further conflicts.
In terms of migration policy and especially in the context of the migration deal concluded with Ankara in 2016, the EU is counting on Turkey as a partner to prevent refugees from continuing to travel to Europe.
Last year, the dispute between Greece and Turkey over Ankara's controversial natural gas research in the eastern Mediterranean had come to a dangerous point.
The EU threatened Turkey with severe sanctions in December.
Ankara later ended the controversial gas exploration and signaled readiness to talk.
(dpa) * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA
