Italian Sassoli elected European Parliament President
Members of the European Parliament voted Italian MEP David-Maria Sassoli as the new president for the assembly at a meeting in Strasbourg.
Sassoli will now will replace Antonio Tajani in the role.
Italian former journalist Sassoli won 345 votes in the second round of balloting. Jan Zahradil won 160 votes and Ska Keller 119.
He is due to serve for two-and-a half years — half the parliamentary term — before passing the torch to a member of the center-right European People’s Party for the rest of the mandate.
As a former vice-president of the Parliament, Sassoli is known to MEPs for chairing plenary sessions in Strasbourg. As a member of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, his delegation is the second largest within the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament.
The vote comes a day after EU leaders agreed nominations for the bloc’s top jobs, with a woman for the first time proposed as European Commission chief.
The surprise choice of German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen to replace Jean-Claude Juncker followed days of difficult negotiations that saw the main front-runners rejected.
Her nomination has to be approved by a majority of MEPs in a vote to be held in Strasbourg on 15 July. Mrs von der Leyen is due to visit MEPs on Wednesday to discuss her nomination. If her candidacy is rejected, national leaders will have a month to nominate a replacement.
Sassoli, an Italian member of the Socialists & Democrats bloc at the European Parliament, in the first vote of the day fell just short of an absolute majority in the first round of voting to become the next president of the legislature.
In the first vote among legislators, Sassoli received 325 votes, 7 shy of an absolute majority. Conservative Jan Zahradil of the Czech Republic got 162 votes, while German Greens leader Ska Keller received 133 and the Spanish left-wing candidate Sira Rego won the support of just 42.
The appointment of a new parliamentary president will complete the bloc’s drawn-out appointment process for its top jobs.
Via BBC
