David Sassoli

David Maria Sassoli (30 May 1956 – 11 January 2022) was an Italian politician and journalist who served as the president of the European Parliament from 3 July 2019 until his death on 11 January 2022.

David Sassoli was born in Florence in 1956 to Tuscan parents from Florence and Prato.

His name "David Maria" was chosen by his father in honour of David Maria Turoldo, an Italian presbyter and theologian.

He studied at the department of political science at the Sapienza University of Rome.

He began his career as a journalist at the newspaper Il Tempo in Rome, before collaborating with various newspapers and the news agency ASCA.

His first national premiere was in 1985, when he interviewed the escaped left-wing terrorist Oreste Scalzone at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

That year he moved to the Roman editorial office of the daily Il Giorno, where he followed the main political and news events for seven years.

He was enrolled in the register of professional journalists from 3 July 1986 on.

During this period, he was a direct witness to fundamental historical events, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, being one of the many that brought the wall down physically.

In 1992, he became a reporter for television news program TG3, and in the same period he collaborated with Michele Santoro for some programs such as Il rosso e il nero and Tempo reale.

In 1996, he hosted the program Cronaca in diretta.

After a few years, he was appointed anchorman of TG1, where he became one of the most notable and popular journalists in the country.

In 2007, when Gianni Riotta was appointed the new director of TG1, Sassoli became his deputy director.

Sassoli was also a supporter of Articolo 21, liberi di..., an Italian association which includes journalists, writers, directors, and lawyers, with the aim of promoting freedom of expression.

Sassoli was first elected as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) in 2009.

In 2009, Sassoli left his journalism career to enter politics, becoming a member of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and running in the 2009 European Parliament election, for the Central Italy district.

On 7 June, he was elected member of the EP with 412,502 personal preferences, becoming the most voted for candidate in his constituency.

From 2009 to 2014, he served as PD's delegation leader in the Parliament.

On 9 October 2012, Sassoli announced his candidacy in the primaries to become the centre-left's candidate as for the office of Mayor of Rome in the 2013 municipal election.

He ended up in second place with 28 per cent of the vote, behind Senator Ignazio Marino, who received 55 per cent, and ahead of former minister of communications Paolo Gentiloni.

Marino would be later elected mayor, defeating the right-wing incumbent, Gianni Alemanno.

In the European Parliament election of 2014, Sassoli was re-elected to the Parliament, with 206,170 preferences.

The election was characterized by a strong showing of his Democratic Party, which received 41 per cent of votes.

On 1 July 2014 Sassoli was elected Vice-President of the European Parliament with 393 votes, making him the second most voted for Socialist candidate.

In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.

Moreover, in his first public act as the newly elected president, Sassoli decided to pay tribute to all the victims of terrorism in Europe, attending one of the sites of the 2016 Brussels bombings to commemorate the victims at Maalbeek/Maelbeek metro station.

He said: "We must pay tribute to the victims in the capital of Europe. We must commemorate the European citizens who were victims of these attacks. This is a tribute to all the victims of terrorism. I wanted to start my time as President with this symbolic act."

In the 2019 European Parliament election in Italy, Sassoli was re-elected to the European Parliament, with 128,533 votes.

On 2 July 2019, he was proposed by the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) as the new president of the European Parliament.

On the following day, Sassoli was elected president by the assembly with 345 votes in favor, succeeding Antonio Tajani.

He became the seventh Italian to hold the office.

In his acceptance speech, Sassoli talked about the European project as a dream of peace and democracy.

He said European citizens showed that they still believed in the project and talked about being proud of European diversity.

He also added that "Europe will be stronger only with a Parliament which plays a more important role".

On 19 December 2019, Sassoli asked for the liberation of Oriol Junqueras, former vice president of Catalonia and recently elected MEP, who was imprisoned after the 2017 Spanish constitutional crisis.

As a member of the European Parliament, Junqueras benefits from parliamentary immunity.

Sassoli urged the Spanish authorities to comply with the European Parliament ruling.

In the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak that was beginning to deeply affect European countries, on 2 March 2020 Sassoli ordered the cancellation of visits to the European Parliament and the suspension of more than 100 events.

On 10 March, he self-isolated in his Brussels residence after visiting Italy, as the Italian government ordered a national lockdown to deal with the spread of the virus.

Following a videoconference with the leaders of the political groups, on 19 March he called an extraordinary session of Parliament for 26 March to approve new measures to address COVID-19 and for the first time a remote voting system would be used.