European Parliament President David Sassoli has died aged 65

David-Maria Sassoli, an Italian centre-left politician and former journalist chosen to lead the European Parliament in 2019, early death Tuesday His spokesman said from serious complications with his immune system. He is 65 years old and has been receiving treatment at a hospital in Aviano, Italy, since December 26.

Sassoli left a long career in television journalism to win a seat in the European Parliament in 2009, as a member of the left-wing Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, the faction the second largest in the European Union legislature with 705 members. His election as president of the European Parliament was a last-minute surprise, at least for him, and part of a complicated deal among EU leaders have also named Ursula von der Leyen of the German Christian Democratic Party as president of the European Commission and Belgian free-market liberal Charles Michel as president of the Council of Europe. Europe.

Michel summon Sassoli a “sincere and passionate European” after his death was announced and said that “we have missed his human warmth, generosity, friendliness and smile .” Von der Leyen mourn “the terrible loss of a great and proud European Italian”, who “was a benevolent journalist, an outstanding President of the European Parliament and above all a dear friend .”

The President of the EU Parliament, one of the top jobs in the 450-million-member bloc, chairs sessions and oversees the activities of the legislature. Sassoli, a conciliatory leader, “spent much of his two-and-a-half year term running Parliament through the unusual difficulty of the coronavirus pandemic, which has closed its buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg for a while,” and hammer out a budget deal, Politico report.

Sassoli has decided not to seek re-election next month, and EU lawmakers are expected to choose Roberta Metsola, a conservative from Malta and the first vice president of Parliament, was his successor.