Two years without David Sassoli. Inauguration speech to EU Parliament: “It is up to citizens to write their own destiny”

Brussels – On Jan. 11, two years ago, David Sassoli passed away after a short hospitalization at the Aviano Oncology Reference Center in Aviano, Italy, from complications due to an immune system dysfunction. The president of the European Parliament died in the full performance of his duties. He was 65 years old, born in Florence but raised in Rome. He started his political career after 20 years as a journalist, which took him to become anchor of the 8 p.m. Tg1, among other things. For the European Union, 2024 will be an important, if not decisive, year, with the call to the polls on June 6-9 to form the new Parliament and the start of the work of the next legislature. Today, we choose to recall his first inaugural speech as president of the European Parliament, delivered in Strasbourg on July 3, 2019, which represents what Europe was for Sassoli, a project of unity born out of the horror of war and the Holocaust.

Citizens of the European Union, ladies and gentlemen Members of Parliament, dear friends, colleagues, representatives of the Institutions, Governments, women and men of this Administration. All of you will understand my emotion, at this moment, in assuming the Presidency of the European Parliament and to have been chosen by you to represent the Institution that, more than any other, has a direct link with the citizens, that has the duty to represent and defend them. And to always remember that our freedom is the child of the justice we know how to conquer and the solidarity we know how to develop.

Please allow me to thank President Antonio Tajani for his work in this Parliament, and for his great commitment and dedication to this institution. I also want to welcome the new colleagues, who are 62 percent of this House, and welcome back the confirmed parliamentarians, and women, who represent 40 percent of all of us. A good result, but we want more. At this time, at the end of an intense election campaign, a legislature begins that events load with great responsibility because no one can be satisfied with preserving the status quo. The election result tells us this; the very composition of this Assembly is a testament to this.

We are in the midst of an epochal transformation: youth unemployment, migration, climate change, digital revolution, new world balances, just to name a few, which need new ideas to be governed, the courage to be able to combine great wisdom and maximum boldness. We must recover the spirit of Ventotene and the pioneering impetus of the Founding Fathers, who knew how to put aside the hostilities of war, put an end to the failures of nationalism by giving us a project capable of combining peace, democracy, rights, development, and equality. In recent months, too many have bet on the decline of this project, fueling divisions and conflicts that we thought were a sad memory of our history. Instead, 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 reinvigorate our integration process, changing our Union to make it capable of responding more strongly to the needs of our citizens and giving real answers to their concerns; to their increasingly widespread sense of bewilderment. We must pursue the defense and promotion of our founding values of freedom, dignity, and solidarity every day inside and outside the EU. Dear colleagues, let us think more often about the world we have, about the freedoms we enjoy…. And so let us say, as others in the East or West or South struggle to recognize it, that so many things make us different — not better, simply different — and that we Europeans are proud of our diversity.
Let’s repeat it so that it is clear to everyone that in Europe, no government can kill, that the value of the person and his dignity are our way of measuring our policies….that with us, no one can shut the mouths of opponents, that our governments and the European institutions that represent them are the fruit of democracy and free elections…that no one can be condemned for his or her religious, political, philosophical beliefs…that with us girls and boys can travel, study, love without constraints….that no European can be humiliated and marginalized for his or her sexual orientation…that in the European space, in different ways, social protection is part of our identity, that the defense of the life of anyone in danger is a duty established by our Treaties and by the international Conventions we have concluded.

Our social market economy model must be revitalized. Our economic rules must be able to combine growth, social protection, and respect for the environment. We must have the adequate tools to fight poverty, give prospects to our young people, revive sustainable investments, and strengthen the process of convergence between our regions and territories. The digital revolution is profoundly changing our lifestyles, our way of producing and consuming. We need rules that can combine technological progress, business development and the protection of workers and people. Climate change exposes us to enormous risks that are now evident
to all. Investment in clean technologies is needed to respond to the millions of young people who have taken to the streets, and some who have even come to this Chamber, to remind us that there is no other planet.

We must work for ever-stronger gender equality and an ever-increasing role for women at the top of politics, the economy, and the social sphere. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is our calling to a world that also needs us to find rules. But all this did not happen by accident. The European Union is not an accident of History. I am the son of a man who at the age of 20 fought other Europeans, and of a mother who, also in her 20s, left her home and found refuge with other families. I know that this is the story of many of your families as well … and I also know that if we pooled our stories and told them to each other over a glass of beer or wine, we would never say that we are children or grandchildren of an accident of History.

But we would say that our history is written on pain, on the blood of the young British men exterminated on the beaches of Normandy, on Sophie and Hans Scholl’s desire for freedom, on the yearning for justice of the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, on the springs repressed with tanks in our Eastern countries, on the desire for fraternity that we find again whenever moral conscience dictates that we must not renounce our humanity and obedience cannot be considered a virtue. We are not an accident of History, but the children and grandchildren of those who managed to find the antidote to that nationalist degeneration that poisoned our history. If we are Europeans, it is also because we are in love with our countries. But nationalism that becomes ideology and idolatry produces viruses that stimulate instincts of superiority and produce destructive conflicts. Colleagues, we need vision, and for that we need politics. We need European parties that are increasingly capable of being the architrave of our democracy. But we need to give them new tools. The ones we have are insufficient.

This legislature will have to strengthen procedures to make Parliament the protagonist of a full European democracy. But we are not starting from scratch, we are not born from nothing. Europe is founded on its Institutions, which although imperfect and in need of reform, have guaranteed us our freedoms and our independence. With our institutions we will be able to respond to all those who are committed to dividing us. And so we say in this House today that Parliament will be the guarantor of the independence of the people of Europe. And that they alone are empowered to write their own destiny: no one for them, no one in our place. In this Chamber along with many friends and colleagues with much experience, there are also a many first-time Members of Parliament. To them a cordial welcome.

I have read many of their biographies and I have become convinced it is a very positive presence because of their skills, professionalism. Many of them are engaged in social activities or protection of people, and this is an area on which Europe must improve because we have a duty to govern new phenomena. On immigration there is too much passing the buck between governments, and every time something happens we are unprepared and start again. Gentlemen of the European Council, this Parliament believes that the time has come to debate the reform of the Dublin Rules of Procedure that this House, by an overwhelming majority, proposed in the last legislature. You owe it to the citizens of Europe who are calling for more solidarity among the member states; you owe it to the poor people for that sense of humanity that we do not want to lose and that has made us great in the eyes of the world.

Much is in your hands, and with responsibility you cannot continue to postpone decisions by fueling distrust in our communities, with citizens continuing to ask, with each emergency: where is Europe? What is Europe doing? This will be a test we must pass to defeat so much laziness and too much jealousy. And again, Parliament, the Council, and the Commission must feel a duty to respond more courageously to the questions of our young people when they urge that we wake up, open our eyes, and save the planet. I want to address them: consider this Parliament, which begins its legislative activity today, as your reference point. Help us, too, to be more courageous in facing the challenges of change. I want to assure the Council and the rotating Presidencies of our full cooperation, and I address the same to the Commission and its President. The European institutions need to rethink themselves and not be seen as standing in the way of building a more united Europe. Through the President of the European Council, I also want to extend greetings, on behalf of this House, to the Heads of State and Government. Twenty-eight countries make the European Union great. And we are talking about 28 states, from the largest to the smallest, which hold treasures unique in the world.

They all come from afar and have an inimitable and unmistakable culture, language, art, landscape, and poetry. They are our great heritage and they all deserve respect. That is why when I visit them, on your behalf, I will never be distracted. And in front of their flags and anthems I will also stand at attention on behalf of those in this House who do not show similar respect. Let me finally address a greeting to British parliamentarians, however they feel about Brexit. For us to imagine Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome away from London is painful. Yes know this, with all the respect we owe to the choices of the British people, for us Europeans this is a political passage that must be carried out with reason, in dialogue, and with friendship, but always with respect for the rules and for each other’s prerogatives.

I want to greet the representatives of the states that have applied to join the European Union. Their path started by their own free choice. They all understand how convenient it is to be part of the Union. The accession procedures are continuing, and Parliament has repeatedly expressed its satisfaction with the results achieved. Finally, good luck to the entire administration and Parliament workers. We set a goal in the last parliamentary term: to make Parliament the House of European Democracy. For this we need reforms, more transparency, innovation. Many things have been achieved, especially on the budget, but this legislature needs to give a greater impetus. To do this there is a need for more dialogue between parliamentarians and the administration, and it will be my care to develop this.

Dear colleagues, Europe still has much to say if we, and you, know how to say it together. If we know how to put the reasons for political struggle at the service of our citizens, if Parliament listens to their wishes and fears and needs. I am sure that all of you will know how to make the necessary contribution for a better Europe that can be born with us, with you, if we know how to put our hearts and ambition into it.