BERLIN (Reuters) – European Council President Charles Michel is suffering from bad nights over his shame over an incident involving the seating of seats at a meeting in Ankara this week, he told German newspaper Handelsblatt.
Ursula Von der Leyen, the first female president of the European Commission, expressed surprise and raised his hand in disbelief when she discovered that Michel had taken the only available seat next to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during the talks.
In the episode, captured on camera, she was eventually relegated to a sofa further away.
“I make no secret that I didn’t sleep well at night because the scenes keep repeating in my head,” Michel told Handelsblatt, adding that if possible he would go back to fix it .
Reporting by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Frances Kerry