On Tuesday, 17 January 2017, the European Parliament elected Antonio Tajani, from the EPP group, as President for the next 2.5 years. During the election campaign for the European Parliament in 2014, Italian Member of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani signed the Manifesto for comprehensive and effective European policies in favour of the Family, Europe’s Treasure!, an initiative launched by FAFCE and signed by 289 candidates to the European Parliament, committing himself to take into account the needs of families when making political decisions.
Although the Parliament is directly elected by European citizens for 5 years, the mandate of the president and vice-presidents of the Parliament lasts only 2.5 years. Therefore, the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) vote for these positions twice during the parliamentary term.
The Parliament elected its new President after a competitive election that required four rounds and lasted the entire day. In the end, Antonio Tajani was elected President.
Tajani was born in 1953 in Rome and has a long political career. In 1994-95 he was a spokesman of the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and in 1994 he was elected for the first time for the European Parliament. He was an MEP until 2008, when he became the European Commissioner for Transport. In 2010, he moved for a new position in the European Commission and served as Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship until 2014. That year, he ran again to the European Parliament and has been an MEP since then. Mr. Tajani will now be the President of the Parliament until the end of the term, in 2019.
