Italian David Sassoli elected head of the European Parliament

Italian MEP David Sassoli has been elected European Parliament President and will have a two-year-and-a-half term. After this period, the leadership of the EP will be taken over by a member of the EPP group.

A Socialist MEP, Sassoli has made an unexpected last-minute run to head the European Parliament, managing to defend his contenders.

Sassoli won 345 votes in the second round of balloting.  Conservative Jan Zahradil won 160 votes and Ska Keller (the Green Party) -119 votes. Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party has also run.

Sassoli, a former TV journalist in Italy, has delivered a speech before the vote, explaining he had decided to run because “Europe will be stronger only with a Parliament which plays a more important role.”

Bulgarian Sergei Stanishev, the president of the Party of European Socialists, has been also rumored in running for the European Parliament helm, in an attempt to provide an Eastern European balance to the slate of EU top jobs. However, in the end, Stanishev did not submit his candidacy, as Parliament officials said.

Incumbent EP President Antonio Tajani and Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt, did not run.

Sassoli’s nomination ends the cycle of new appointments across the EU bodies, after Ursula von der Leyen, the incumbent German Defence minister, had been officially proposed as candidate for the helm of the European Commission, while Charles Michel for the seat of European Council head on Tuesday.