European Union leaders, as well as representatives of Italy’s largest institutions, said goodbye on Friday (14.01.2022) in Rome at the state funeral for the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, who died last Tuesday at the age of 65. years.
Sassoli’s coffin draped in the European Union flag entered the Basilica of Santa Maria de los Angeles and the Martyrs in Rome, where the funeral rites of the great dignitaries of Italy are celebrated, with a guard of honor. This is not in vain, the first representative of the European Union to die while in office.
The funeral was attended by, among others, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella, the Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and the Prime Minister. Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez. The ceremony was broadcast live on RAI public television, under the title “Ciao David”, in a very moving tribute to the fact that Sassoli, before entering politics more than 10 years ago, was a presenter for one of his news programmes.
Dedicated to “Protecting the Vulnerable”
In a chapel full of characters, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, a personal friend, summed up Sassoli’s legacy: “Protect the weak and not let the walls rise,” stressed the bishop. Thousands of people, from ordinary citizens to ministers and political opponents, lined up Thursday to enter the funeral chapel erected in the room of the Capitol Protomotica in Rome.
He will be remembered by his colleagues in the European Parliament next Monday at the opening of the plenary session in Strasbourg, in the presence of the heads of European institutions, the former Italian Prime Minister, the Secretary General of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta and the French head of state Emmanuel. Macron.
At the end of today’s party, both his former colleagues at RAI and his team spoke at the President of the European Parliament: They were all “proud” of him and remembered how he opened Parliament to women seeking asylum and those who were hungry serving a hot meal, among other things. His daughter Julia read her father’s last Christmas message: “Inequality is no longer acceptable or acceptable, and the duty of European institutions is to protect the weakest.”
lgc (afp/efe)
