The President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, 65, died on Tuesday, at 1.15 a.m., in a hospital in the Italian town Aviano where he was admitted on 26 December, his spokesperson Roberto Cuillo had said, being quoted by the foreign media.
Sassoli, an Italian socialist and former journalist from Florence, had been hospitalized last month due to a “serious complication” related to his immune system, as the European Parliament confirmed on Monday.
Sassoli died just days before the end of his term as President of the 705-member Parliament, which is due to elect his successor in Strasbourg next week. He had been battling serious illness, including pneumonia, since September and had been hospitalized for multiple times.
On 7 June 2009, David Sassoli was elected to the European Parliament as a member for central Italy. In the 2009-2014 legislature, he was head of delegation of the Partito Democratico in the European Parliament. In 2014, he was re-elected as an MEP and was elected Vice-President of the European Parliament. In May 2019, he began his third term as an MEP for central Italy and on 3 July, he was elected President of the European Parliament, according to https://www.europarl.europa.eu/.
It is for the first time in the history of the European Parliament that an incumbent president dies. Maltese lawmaker Roberta Metsola, from the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), who is the First Vice-President of the European Parliament, is widely expected to be a candidate for the post.
The Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova Igor Grosu posted a message of condolence on his Facebook page. “I had the honor to know him and to talk to him two months ago, during a visit to Brussels. He knew well and was a good friend of the Republic of Moldova, being a devoted European and a great human rights defender. Rest in peace, David-Maria Sassoli,” wrote Igor Grosu.
