David Sassoli praised for his ‘solidarity’ with EU lawmakers on China disputes
- The president of the European Parliament, who died on Tuesday, was remembered as protective of MEPs who came under fire from Beijing
- ‘Europe is not a punching bag. … We are an area of freedom, and there is no intimidation we can accept,’ he said after sanctions were placed on some lawmakers
Members of the European Parliament from across the political spectrum praised David Sassoli, the parliament president who died on Tuesday at 65, for his “clear-cut support” of lawmakers who had run afoul of China.
Sassoli – a centre-left MEP from Italy for a decade, sitting with the Socialists and Democrats grouping – was elected as president of the parliament in July 2019.
His tenure coincided with a dramatic period of turbulence in the European Union’s relationship with China, a time when the parliament was often found at the heart of the disputes.
The tone was set early on in his term, when he ordered an investigation into the EU-China Friendship Group, a now-defunct cohort accused of peddling Beijing’s influence in Brussels.
At other points, Sassoli conferred a human rights award to the Uygur activist Ilham Thoti, who remains detained in China, and had thermal cameras removed from the parliament building because they were made by the Chinese surveillance firm Hikvision.