Germany’s ambassador to Budapest, Julia Gross, may be Germany’s top ambassador to Hungary, but apparently she is a little confused as to what the Hungarian flag looks like.
The German diplomat was panned on Twitter after sharing a post with Hungarian Development Minister Tibor Navracsics where she praised German-Hungarian cooperation in the area of culture and education. In the post, she replaced the country names with flags of both countries, a common practice on Twitter. The only problem was that in addition to the German flag, she posted the Dutch flag instead of the Hungarian one.
After users pointed out the mistake, she then replaced the Dutch flag, but this time with the flag of Tajikistan, prompting the Hungarian ambassador in Brussels to step in with a friendly reminder of what the Hungarian flag looked like.
The first time around, Gross responded to users who pointed out she used the Dutch flag, writing, “Sorry and thank you for the tip in the comments. That is indeed the wrong flag.” She explained her mistake by saying she had made it inside a dark car.
However, upon editing her mistake, she replaced the Dutch flag with the flag of Tajikistan. Unlike the Dutch flag, which is quite distinct from the Hungarian flag, the Tajik flag features red, white and green stripes, which closely resembles the Hungarian flag. However, the flag of the Asian country has a golden crown in the middle surrounded by seven golden stars.
The Hungarian ambassador in Brussels, Tamás István Kovács, also commented on the German ambassador’s post, pointing out the correct emoji.
“If you use it often, our Hungarian flag will appear for you under the ‘frequently used,’” he said with an emoji wink.
