The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, is dead. He died early in the morning at the age of 65 in the municipality of Aviano in the north-eastern Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, his spokesman Roberto Cuillo wrote on Twitter.
A spokesman for the EU Parliament in Brussels announced on Monday that Sassoli was being treated in a hospital in his home country, Italy. The stay had become “because of a serious complication due to a dysfunction of the immune system”.
According to the EU Parliament, the President of the Parliament had been in treatment since December 26th. In October, Sassoli already missed a session of parliament because he had a fever. He was previously hospitalized for pneumonia. The Centro di Riferimento Oncologico hospital in Aviano did not provide any information when asked on Tuesday morning. Spokesman Cuillo said on Twitter that the time and place of the funeral would be announced in the coming hours.
Sassoli campaigned for people on the run
Sassoli belonged to the Italian social democratic Partito Democratico (PD). The members of the European Parliament had elected him their President in 2019. Before that, he had held the post of Vice President since 2014 and worked for about three years (2014 to 2017) as a representative of the then President Martin Schulz (SPD).
Before his political career, Sassoli worked as a journalist. The political scientist studied initially started with smaller newspapers. In 1985 he made it to the editorial office of the Roman daily newspaper Il Giorno. He later ended up on television and even hosted the main news show TG1 on the public broadcaster Rai 1.
Sassoli was, among other things, a critic of the migration policy of many member states. Again and again he advocated the concerns of people on the run. In Italy, migration between left and right-wing parties is a particularly big controversial issue, as a large number of migrants arrive in the Mediterranean country in boats on their flight to get to the EU. He was also considered a progressive Catholic. According to his party, he was a boy scout and was involved in Catholic youth groups.
Roberta Metsola is supposed to be Sassoli’s successor
Sassoli’s term as President of Parliament would have ended in the coming week. After the European elections in 2019, the Social Democrats, the Christian Democratic EPP and the Liberals in the EU Parliament agreed that the office of Parliament President should initially be held for two and a half years by the Social Democratic S&D Group and then taken over by the EPP.
The S&D parliamentary group had later temporarily announced that it would hold onto the post, but cleared the way in December. Sassoli’s successor is likely to be the 42-year-old Maltese Roberta Metsola, who is currently one of the vice-presidents.