The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, died on Tuesday, aged 65, after more than two weeks in a hospital in Italy for complications arising from a dysfunction in the immune system, said his spokesman, Roberto Cuillo.
“The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, died at 1:15 am on January 11 at the hospital in Aviano, Italy, where he was hospitalized. The date and place of the funeral will be communicated in the coming hours,” Cuillo posted on Twitter.
After contracting pneumonia in September of last year, Sassoli spent more than two months recovering in his native country and had recently returned to political activity, when on December 26 he was admitted again to an Italian hospital for “serious complications following a dysfunction of the immune”.
The hospitalization was only announced this Monday, 15 days later, when the spokesman announced the cancellation of all upcoming public acts.
The Italian Social Democrat, who had a long career in journalism before entering politics, was appointed President of the European Parliament in July 2019 and was in the last week of his term. Next Tuesday, Parliament will elect a new president for having reached the middle of this legislature (2019-2024).
This is the first time in the history of the European Parliament that an incumbent president has died. According to Parliament’s rules of procedure, the first vice president must act as president until a successor is elected.
In this case, the first vice-president is the Maltese Roberta Metsola, of the European People’s Party, who was already the favorite to win the post in the renewal of the summit scheduled for next week in Strasbourg, France.
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