Antonio Tajani, 63 years old and member of the European People's Party, is the new president of the European Parliament. Tajani, born in Rome in 1953 and one of the founders of Forza Italia in 1994, is one of the 10 vice-presidents of the EPP and will now fill a position of which he was the vice-president until today, under the presidency of the German socialist exponent Martin Schulz.
Graduated in Law, he has already been European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship and European Commissioner for Transport: Antonio Tajani won the all-Italian derby for the presidency of Strasbourg, overcoming the socialist Gianni Pittella in the fourth and decisive ballot, with 351 votes against the 282 obtained by his compatriot.
The victory was possible due to the fact that the ppe and alde groups in the european parliament have initialed a cooperation agreement which in fact pushed Antonio Tajani towards the presidency of the Eurochamber. The liberal candidate of the Alde Guy Verhofstadt had in fact withdrawn his candidacy. “Europe is in crisis – reads the text of the agreement – a pro-European coalition is needed. This is why EPP and Alde, beyond their ideological differences, have decided to work closely together and offer a common platform as a starting point for this pro-European cooperation".
