The Croatian Foreign Minister, Gordan Grlic-Radma, has apologized for trying to kiss his German counterpart, Annalena Baerbock, in a gesture that in his country have been compared to non-consensual kissing that the former president of the Spanish Football Federation Luis Rubiales gave to soccer player Jenni Hermoso.

The incident occurred last Thursday during the family photo taken by the foreign ministers of the EU and candidate countries meeting in Berlin. In the video, which has gone viral, you can see how the Croatian conservative minister first shakes hands with Baerbock and then tries to kiss her, while She withdraws her face with a displeased expression..

Grlic-Radman tried to justify what happened this Friday stating that it was simply a gesture of friendship, although he acknowledged that it was “clumsy” and apologized.

Mirna Zidaric, a sports journalist from Croatian public television ‘HRT’, has compared that attempt to kiss the minister with the kiss that Rubiales gave soccer player Jenni Hermoso on the mouth. “Disgusting, disgusting and unacceptable. I hope he has the same fate as Rubiales,” Zidaric wrote on Instagram.

Rubiales has been disqualified by FIFA for three years, and the Prosecutor’s Office has opened proceedings against him for an alleged crime of sexual assault. “Forcibly kissing women is an act of violenceor not?”, Jadranka Kosor, former conservative prime minister of Croatia, commented on the social network