From a career as a journalist on the Rai at the head of the European Parliament, the Italian Social Democrat David Sassoli has made an impression. He died on the night of Monday January 10 to Tuesday January 11 at the age of 65, while he was hospitalized “due to a serious complication due to a dysfunction of the immune system”, said its spokesperson, Roberto Cuillo. Monday afternoon, all official activities of the president of the Strasbourg assembly, in office since 2019, had been canceled. Franceinfo looks back on the career of this journalist, who unanimously elected President of the European Parliament.
He was one of the featured presenters of the Rai
Born May 30, 1956 in Florence, Tuscany, David Sassoli chose journalism after studying political science. After several collaborations with small newspapers and press agencies, he endorsed a career as a television journalist by joining Rai, the Italian public audiovisual group, in 1992. He then became one of the star presenters of the 20 hours newspaper on the Rai Uno.
He said he didn’t have “completely abandoned a journalist career” and still collaborated with various dailies and magazines writing columns. He is also the author, with Francesco Saverio Romano, of a book on the Councils of Ministers during the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in the spring of 1978, published in 2013. This work traces the inability of the authorities of the time to save Aldo Moro, then president of the Italian Council of Ministers, kidnapped and then assassinated by the Red Brigades.
His entry into politics was successful
An important turning point in his career occurred in 2009: his final entry into politics. At that time, the left-wing ex-mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, organized the merger of two major left and center-left parties, which gave birth to the Democratic Party (PD), to which David Sassoli joined.
Then a candidate for the European elections, the presenter of the “8:00 pm” was elected on a list of the PD with more than 400,000 votes, a success which definitively removed him from the screens and which launched his political career at the heart of the European Parliament. Became head of the PD delegation within the institution, David Sassoli attempted a foray into the national political scene by running for the PD primaries with a view to running for the post of mayor of Rome in 2013, but he was overtaken by Ignazio Marino.
He devoted his political career to Europe
David Sassoli then decides to devote himself fully to his career as an MEP. This father of two was re-elected MEP in 2014 and became a member of the Transport and Tourism Committee. The same year, he successfully ran for the mandate of Vice-President of Parliament, in charge of the budget and Euro-Mediterranean policy. He claimed the paternity of “the most important railway reform in the European Union – the European Sassoli-Dijksma law – which was adopted in 2017 after three years of complicated negotiations” on opening up national passenger transport markets to competition.
Reelected MEP in May 2019, David Sassoli becomes, to everyone’s surprise, President of the European Parliament in July of the same year, for a term of two and a half years. His nationality, his party – the second component of the Social Democratic Group – and his knowledge of the institution, of which he was one of the vice-presidents during the previous legislature, made him, at the last minute, the man for the job.
At the end of negotiations between major political forces and governments for the presidencies of the three European institutions, he was therefore elected with an absolute majority and the support of the right, which had obtained the presidency of the Commission with Ursula von der Leyen, and liberal-centrists, represented on the Council by Charles Michel.
In the midst of a pandemic, he was a united president
Discreet, but firm in his conduct of debates in the hemicycle both in Strasbourg and in Brussels, David Sassoli was very involved in his mandate. However, the latter was quickly weighed down by the Covid-19 health crisis, which forced the European Parliament to work remotely. But the attention paid to his teams, put into teleworking, his sense of organization (with a remote voting system) and his ability to resist French pressure to bring elected officials back to Strasbourg, seat of Parliament, have earned the respect of the institution.
Showing solidarity in the midst of a pandemic, David Sassoli also made an impression by providing the deserted premises of the Parliament, both in Strasbourg and in Brussels, thus allowing the preparation of meals for people in need, the installation of ” a Covid-19 screening center or the establishment of a refuge for isolated women.
Good living, he had fragile health
The health of this man, who had suffered from leukemia in the past, had become fragile. An inveterate smoker and a bon vivant, he was hospitalized in serious condition last September, due to pneumonia which had kept him away from Parliament for several weeks.
On December 26, he was hospitalized again “due to a serious complication due to a dysfunction of the immune system”, according to his spokesperson, Roberto Cuillo.
A man unanimously greeted
Shortly after news of his death was announced on Tuesday, tributes poured in. It was “a good, tenacious and combative man”, with a “constant attention to the most vulnerable”, noted Roberto Cuillo, his spokesperson interviewed on the Rai News 24 television channel. “He was a true democrat. He believed in meeting different cultures”, he added.
Many MEPs also expressed their emotion. “I am extremely sad. His work to modernize Parliament from the ground up was visionary and I hope we can complete the tasks he had undertaken.” to reform the institution, thus reacted the Danish MEP Karen Melchior (Renew, liberals). For her part, Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola, tipped to succeed her in the mid-term election, said he had “broken heart”. Before adding: “Europe has lost a leader, I have lost a friend, democracy has lost a champion”.