David Sassoli, an Italian politician from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, was elected the new president of the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Sassoli secured 345 votes in the second ballot. The absolute majority required 334 vote

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd July, 2019) David Sassoli, an Italian politician from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, was elected the new president of the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Sassoli secured 345 votes in the second ballot. The absolute majority required 334 votes. </s> Former Italian journalist Sassoli elected new head of EP

David-Maria Sassoli has been selected as the new president of the European Parliament.

David-Maria Sassoli was elected the EU Parliament's new president on Wednesday, the EP's Twitter account announced.

Sassoli was the candidate of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) for the position and was elected by the votes of the members of the European Parliament. Before today he was the parliament's vice-president.

Sassoli, a former journalist, was born in Florence in 1956 and in 2009 waselected an MEP from Italy's leftist Democratic Party.

After not getting an absolute majority of votes in the first round, Sassoli was elected in the second round with 345 votes. The EP's previous president Antonio Tajani is also Italian. The president serves for two-and-a-half years.

He is responsible for managing work of the parliament, approving the EU's budget, and signing the laws of the EU along with the president of the EU Council. </s> David Sassoli has been a center-left, Democratic Party (PD) member of the European Parliament since 2009. His delegation is the second largest within the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) group in the assembly.

A former vice-president of the European Parliament, 63-year-old Sassoli is known to lawmakers for chairing plenary sessions in Strasbourg.

Speaking ahead of the vote, the Florentine lawmaker said: "Europe will be stronger only with a Parliament which plays a more important role."

A graduate of political science, he worked on newspapers in Rome before becoming a reporter for the TG3 channel in 1992 and then a news presenter for TG1. He became deputy director of the channel in 2007.

He left journalism to become a European parliamentary candidate for the PD, representing the Central Italy district and became Vice President of the European Parliament in 2014. He was also a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights.

Re-elected in 2019, he was proposed by the S&D as its candidate for parliamentary president and was elected in the second round with 345 votes.

Every evening, DW sends out a selection of the day's news and features. Sign up here. </s> David-Maria Sassoli, an Italian politician from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats has been elected the European Parliament President.

​In the first round of voting, Sassoli received 325 votes. Jan Zahradil, a Czech politician from the European Conservatives and Reformists, received 162 votes. Ska Keller, a German politician of the Greens, secured 133 votes. Spaniard Sira Rego of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left garnered 42 votes.

Sassoli secured 345 votes in the second ballot. The absolute majority required is 334 votes.

A day earlier, EU leaders announced their picks to head key EU institutions after days of wrangling.

The European Council chose German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen as a candidate for president of the European Commission. She will need the backing of a majority at the European Parliament to head the commission.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel was named the new president of the European Council.

Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund was submitted as a candidate for president of the European Central Bank (ECB). Her nomination needs support from the European Parliament and the ECB's Governing Council.

Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borell is considered as a candidate for High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. He will be confirmed by the Commission's president-elect.​ </s> Frederick Florin, AFP | Italian MEP David-Maria Sassoli (S&D Group) delivers a speech after being elected new president of the European Parliament during the first plenary session of the newly elected European Assembly on July 3, 2019 in Strasbourg.

Newly-elected European Parliament President David Sassoli is a former television journalist who turned to politics 10 years ago as a centre-left MEP.

Parliament on Wednesday chose the 63-year-old social democrat to succeed another Italian, Antonio Tajani, an ally of Silvio Berlusconi from the right-wing EPP group.

His election means Italy keeps one of its three key European jobs, following the departure of European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and of EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

The sober intellectual will not be an ally of the populist and far-right coalition currently ruling in Rome.

Born in Florence on May 30, 1956, father-of-two Sassoli studied political science before starting work as a newspaper and news agency journalist.

He began working for national broadcaster RAI in 1992, rising through the ranks to become a familiar face for millions of Italians, presenting the evening news on the main channel, of which he also became deputy-director.

In 2009, Sassoli joined the Democratic Party, newly formed from former Rome mayor Walter Veltroni's union of the two main left-wing and centre-left parties.

His celebrity meant he was elected MEP on the DP's list with a whopping 400,000 votes, sending him from Italian television screens to a new career at the European parliament.

Sassoli became head of the DP's European group and briefly attempted to enter national politics as the party's candidate in Rome's mayoral primaries but was beaten by Ignazio Marino, who went on to become mayor.

Re-elected MEP in 2014, Sassoli became parliament's vice-president in charge of the budget and Euro-Mediterranean policy.

"While in charge of this policy, I represented the European parliament at numerous official occasions, developing dialogue with institutions in Mediterranean and Middle East countries," Sassoli writes on his webpage.

He was the joint author of the Sassoli-Dijksma European railway reform which liberalised rail travel in 2017 after three years of complex negotiations.

"I have not completely abandoned my journalist career, I still collaborate in an active way with various dailies and periodicals," he writes.

He co-wrote a book with Francesco Saverio Romano about the drama of cabinet meetings during the 1978 kidnap and murder of prime minister Aldo Moro by far-left militants.

"If you put your trust in me, we will fight together for a parliament that is modern, more transparent, environmentally sound, accessible to citizens," he promised fellow MEPs ahead of the vote on his nomination.

"Nothing is possible without people, nothing is durable without institutions," he added, quoting one of the EU's founding fathers, Jean Monnet. </s> MEPs elected David Sassoli as President of the European Parliament on Wednesday afternoon, having won 345 out of 667 valid votes in the second round.

David Sassoli was born in Florence on May , 30, 1956. As an Italian MEP since 2009, he was re-elected on a Partito Democratico list in Central Italy in May 2019 for a third term. He will lead Parliament until January 2022.

In a brief address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg immediately after the vote, President Sassoli thanked the 9th legislature MEPs for their confidence in him.

He then said: “In these months, too many people have fuelled divisions and conflicts that we thought were a sad reminder of our history. Instead, the citizens have shown that they still believe in this extraordinary path, the only one capable of providing answers to the global challenges before us.”

“We must have the strength to relaunch our integration process, changing our Union so to be able to respond more strongly to the needs of our citizens and give real answers to their concerns, to their increasingly widespread sense of loss.”

Sassoli also underlined the priorities that the Parliament will have to pursue in the coming years. “We are immersed in momentous transformations: youth unemployment, migration, climate change, the digital revolution, the new world balance, just to name a few, which need new ideas and courage”.

A full version of the President’s address is available here </s> July 3 (UPI) -- The European Parliament overwhelmingly elected Italian David-Maria Sassoli Wednesday as its new president, with 345 votes in the second round of balloting.

Sassoli, a former television journalist in Italy, thanked lawmakers for the vote of confidence. He's a member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. His election followed a marathon of meetings Monday and Tuesday.

Sassoli said he plans to be a unifying leader.

"We must have the strength to relaunch our integration process, changing our union so to be able to respond more strongly to the needs of our citizens and give real answers to their concerns," Sassoli said after his election. "We are immersed in momentous transformations: youth unemployment, migration, climate change, the digital revolution, the new world balance, just to name a few, which need new ideas and courage."

Sassoli's term will last two and-a-half years.

European Parliament will also elect 14 vice presidents and other positions this week.

The European Union nominated German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen Tuesday as the first female commission leader. </s> The new European Parliament has convened to elect a new president to replace incumbent Antonio Tajani after a pan-European vote in May.

The list of the candidates includes Ska Keller (the European Free Alliance, Germany), Sira Rego (the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, Spain), David-Maria Sassoli (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Italy), and Jan Zahradil (Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, the Czech Republic).

Follow Sputnik's Live Feed to Find Out More! </s> Strasbourg: The European Parliament on Wednesday elected an Italian social democrat as its new president, filling the final top EU job a day after Brussels named two women to key posts for the first time.

Italy's David Sassoli, a 63-year-old former journalist, won the absolute majority of ballots he needed at the second round of voting, seeing off German Green Ska Keller, far-left Spaniard Sira Rego and Czech conservative Jan Zahradil.

The new MEPs elected in May's European polls took office on Tuesday during a brief inaugural session before voting by secret ballot to choose Sassoli as successor to Antonio Tajani, a conservative from Italy.

The 751-seat parliament — based in Strasbourg, France — is more fragmented than ever after the May election saw solid gains by the liberals and Greens as well as the far right and eurosceptics.

The vote for president completes the roster of the EU's five most important jobs, with the others settled on Tuesday at the end of three days of negotiation among the EU's 28 national leaders in Brussels.

Sassoli's election to a two-and-a-half year term as parliament president — effectively the speaker of the chamber — is a sought-after post by the major European political families, though less coveted than that of president of the European Commission or European Central Bank.

The EU leaders on Tuesday nominated German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen as commission chief and IMF chief Christine Lagarde to head the European Central Bank, though their appointments still need confirmation.

The national leaders also suggested that the chamber's presidency should be shared for the next five years by the Socialists and Tajani's centre-right EPP. Sassoli's election completes the first part of this, but it remains unclear whether he will make way in due course.

Von der Leyen is expected to visit parliament in the afternoon to court MEPs, whose approval is needed to confirm her position as commission chief.

Germany's Manfred Weber, head of the EPP group, took note of the outcome of the Brussels summit by renouncing a run for parliament head, after having already thrown in the towel in the race for the Commission's presidency.

"It is normal, that after two and a half years of an EPP president, now it is up to the Socialists to present a candidate," Weber told a press briefing in Strasbourg.

"We are ready to check with the Socialists for a candidate and to give our support," he said.

But the Social Democratic group in the European Parliament, second only to the EPP in terms of seats, put forward Sassoli after criticising the agreements reached between the 28, which it described as "deeply disappointing".

They had wanted the commission head spot to go to their leading candidate, the Dutchman Frans Timmermans.

On Tuesday, the opening of the Parliament's session was marked by the return of Nigel Farage, a veteran of the EU chamber since 1999, whose Brexit Party MEPs turned their backs when asked to stand for the EU anthem -- Beethoven's Ode to Joy -- at the start of the session.

As Brexit has still not taken place, there are again 73 British MEPs, who will be able to sit temporarily until the divorce goes through. The new deadline is October 31.

It also saw the demonstration of some 10,000 Catalans who came to Strasbourg to support three secessionists elected at the end of May but prevented from sitting by Spanish authorities.
David Sassoli of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats is elected President of the European Parliament.