“The President of the European Parliament David Sassoli – announced his spokesman Roberto Cuillo – died at 1.15 am on 11 January at the CRO in Aviano (PN). In the next few hours, the date and place of the funeral will be communicated “. Only yesterday his hospitalization was announced, from December 26, for “the onset of a serious complication due to a dysfunction of the immune system”. DAVID SASSOLI, UMBERTO PIZZI’S PHOTOS
He was born in Florence on May 30, 1956, but his childhood was spent in Rome. His father Domenico , a journalist at La Nazione, took the family to the capital when I went to work for the Popolo, a daily newspaper of the Christian Democrats. In high school Virgilio knowsAlessandra Vittorini , who will become his wife and mother of his two children Livia and Giulio.
He grew up in the world of progressive Catholicism, in the wake of Giorgio La Pira , who was a friend of the family, Aldo Moro , Sergio Mattarella , Romano Prodi and especially Paolo Giuntella , who pushed him to join the Rosa Bianca, an association of political culture that brought together groups of young people from Catholic associations: Aci, Fuci, Acli, Agesci (group of scouts of which Sassoli was a member). He actively participates in the Democratic League, a political reflection group led by Pietro Scoppola, Achille Ardigo , Paolo Prodi , Roberto Ruffilli .
He collaborated with small newspapers and with the Catholic agency Asca when, thanks to a scoop on Gianni De Michelis in Paris, in 1985 he joined the Roman editorial office of Il Giorno, where he remained for seven years, before arriving on Sandro Curzi ‘s Tg3 . At that time he collaborated on Michele Santoro ‘s program “Il rosso e il nero”. He will mainly deal with news, a theme at the center of his first presentation in a Rai2 afternoon program. Finally, Tg1, where he will be special correspondent, deputy director and face of the news for many years.
He enrolled in the newborn Democratic Party and Dario Franceschini , at the time secretary and his old militant partner among the young Christian Democrats, nominated him for the 2009 European elections. He obtained over 400,000 preferences and became the party leader in Strasbourg. Unlike the two journalists who had made a “leap” similar to him, Santoro and Lilli Gruber , he will never go back, on the contrary he promises to “devote the rest of his life to politics”.
In 2013 he ran in the primaries for mayor of Rome, where he finished second behind Ignazio Marino (who will win the elections) and in front of Paolo Gentiloni, who will later be Minister, Prime Minister and European Commissioner. Primaries that will prove to be lucky for everyone except for those who won them, in short. In 2014 he was confirmed in the European Parliament and elected vice-president: he agrees the socialist group, of which he belongs, and the popular group, with whom he shares roots and principles. In 2019 the third term, with the election as president.
In his inaugural speech he exhorted to “relaunch our integration process, changing our Union to make it capable of responding more strongly to the needs of our citizens and to give true answers to their concerns, to their ever more widespread sense of bewilderment. . The defense and promotion of our founding values of freedom, dignity and solidarity must be pursued every day inside and outside the EU “, to recover” the spirit of Ventotene and the pioneering momentum of the Founding Fathers, who were able to put aside hostilities of war, to put an end to the failures of nationalism by giving us a project capable of combining peace, democracy, rights, development and equality ”. The reference to nationalism, at the moment of greatest electoral success of the sovereignists, was not accidental. He loved to quoteJean Monnet : “Nothing is possible without men, nothing lasts without institutions”.
His mandate was about to expire: Socialists and People’s Party had agreed to alternate on the seat in the middle of the legislature, and soon Parliament would have to vote for his successor, who in all probability will be the Maltese Roberta Metsola . DAVID SASSOLI, UMBERTO PIZZI’S PHOTOS
Farewell to David Sassoli, President of the European Parliament. The photos of Pizzi
