EU Parliament President David Sassoli has died - Italians were being treated for "serious complications"

Created: 01/11/2022Updated: 01/11/2022, 7:08 am

EU Parliament President David Sassari has died at the age of 65.

© Geert VANDEN WIJNGAAERT / POOL / AFP

He was seen as a fighter for the rights of migrants.

The President of the European Parliament David Sassoli has died at the age of 65.

He had been in the hospital for a long time.

Aviano - The news came in the middle of the night: The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, is dead. He died on Tuesday at 1:15 am in the Centro di Riferimento Oncologico in Aviano, its spokesman Roberto Cuillo told the German Press Agency.

Sassoli was 65 years old.

David Sassoli dies: politicians express condolences - "Ciao David"

Early in the morning, the first politicians expressed their condolences.

"Ciao David, lifelong friend," wrote Italy's Minister of Culture Dario Franceschini on Twitter.

“His warmth was an inspiration to everyone who knew him.

My sincere condolences go to his family and loved ones, ”tweeted EU Climate Commissioner Frans Timmermans.

"I'm lost for words."

Sassoli has been in the hospital for a long time, as it became known on Monday.

A spokesman for the European Parliament in Brussels had said that the Italian was staying in a clinic in his home country and was being treated there.

The stay had become necessary “because of a serious complication due to a dysfunction of the immune system”.

Mourning the President of the European Parliament: David Sassoli has been treated in a clinic since Christmas

According to Cuillo, the Speaker of Parliament was hospitalized on December 26th and all of his official appointments have since been canceled.

In September he had been hospitalized for pneumonia and was unable to do his job for several weeks.

He had also had leukemia once before.

Cuillo said on Twitter that the time and place of the funeral would be announced in the coming hours.

On Monday morning, Sassoli had condoled on the death of the Italian journalist Silvia Tortora via his private Twitter account.

On December 31, he praised the words of the Italian head of state, Sergio Mattarella, in his New Years address.

David Sassoli is dead: career began as a journalist in Italy

Sassoli belonged to the social democratic party Partito Democratico (PD). He had been President of the European Parliament since July 2019. The Social Democrat replaced his compatriot Antonio Tajani from the conservative Forza Italia. Before that, he held the post of Vice President in the EU institution from 2014 to 2019 and thus worked for around three years (2014 to 2017) as the representative of the then European Parliament President Martin Schulz (SPD).

Sassoli was born on May 30, 1956 in Florence, Tuscany.

After studying political science, he worked as a journalist in Italy, first for newspapers and news agencies and then for Italian public radio.

He quickly developed into a familiar face for millions of Italians when he presented the evening news on Rai Uno - a kind of Italian "Mister Tagesschau".

In 2007 he also became deputy director of the TG1 news program.

David Sassoli provided parliamentary rooms for the needy

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. The Presidente, who often spoke in his native Italian, led parliamentary debates with a hard hand, but without verbal outbursts. His two and a half year term of office was marked by the corona pandemic.

So he had to coordinate the conversion of parliamentary operations to teleworking.

His organizational skills earned him respect among MPs.

As a token of his solidarity in the midst of the crisis, he made the orphaned premises of Parliament available in both Strasbourg and Brussels to prepare meals for families in need and set up a center for corona tests.