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The late president of the European Parliament was fired this Friday at the Basilica of Santa Maria de los Angeles y martires in Rome. The ceremony was attended by the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council, as well as the Italian president and prime minister.
With a flag of the European Union covering his coffin, Sassoli’s family and representatives of the European and Italian institutions bid farewell to the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, in a ceremony that recalled his commitment to the values of Europe and the rights of the most disadvantaged.
The ceremony was attended by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen; the President of the European Council, Charles Michel; the President of Italy, Sergio Matarella, and the Prime Minister of the country, Mario Draghi, as well as the French Prime Minister Jean Castex and the President of the Spanish Government Pedro Sánchez.
The President of the European Parliament passed away on January 11 due to chronic health complications. Von der Leyen referred to Sassoli’s death as a “sad day for Europe” and Mario Draghi described him as “a profound pro-European and a symbol of balance, humanity and generosity”.
Sassoli: a man of European and humanist values
Sassoli’s farewell remarks at the ceremony were led by Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, a childhood friend of the late politician. Zuppi highlighted the humanitarian values of the politician, who strongly defended the unity of Europe, as well as European values.
The cardinal assured that for him “politics was a common good and democracy was humanitarian, inclusive and humanistic” and stressed that he was “a son of the resistance (against fascism and Nazism) and of its values”.
Zuppi recalled that, in his last Christmas message, Sassoli had referred to the borders of the European Union as “walls erected against people who ask for shelter from the cold, from hunger, from war, from poverty”, in reference to the fences erected in different border areas of the bloc.
These words by Sassoli came at a time when the continent is experiencing the arrival of thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, a migration crisis that has divided the European Parliament for years, between those who ask for greater humanitarian guarantees for irregular migrants and those who They defend the creation of hard borders to prevent their arrival.
The day before, the funeral chapel that had been installed in the Capitol of Rome to publicly dismiss the Italian leader was visited by thousands of people, including citizens, ministers, parliamentarians and also political opponents, who came to bid him their last goodbye. .
For several years, Sassoli was the presenter of the prime-time newscast on Italian public television (RAI), the channel that broadcast the ceremony under the title ‘Ciao David’. Sassoli entered politics in 2009 and from that year he became a European parliamentarian. Ten years later, in 2019, he was elected to lead the 705-seat European Parliament, and his term was due to end this month.
The European Parliament will elect Sassoli’s successor on Tuesday
The mandate of the current community legislature (2019-2024) had been agreed by the different parliamentary groups after the elections to Parliament in 2019. Then, the European legislators agreed that Sassoli’s presidency would last two and a half years and then he would be succeeded by a member of the center-right European People’s group.
That is why Sassoli’s death has not affected elections that were already scheduled for Tuesday, January 18 of this year. However, despite the pacts made after the elections two and a half years ago, it is not clear who will succeed the center-left politician.
Among the candidates for succession is the Maltese Roberta Metsola, current acting president of Parliament after the death of Sassoli and first vice-president of the European Parliament since 2019. The Swedish Alice Bah Kuhnke (the Greens), the conservative Polish Kosma Zlotowski and the Spanish from La Izquierda Sira Rego.
Metsola, an MEP from the conservative European Popular Group and a lawyer specializing in community legislation, is presented as the favorite to succeed the president of the assembly, the body in charge of making community laws for the 27 member states.
However, and despite being in the most progressive wing of his party, with a speech in which he defends women’s equality and the rights of LGTBIQ people, as well as an openness to the discussion of immigration laws, a rigid stance towards abortion in your country has created suspicion among some progressive legislators.
With EFE, AFP and Reuters
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