Antonio Tajani

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Antonio Tajani (2018)

Antonio Tajani (born August 4, 1953 in Rome ) is an Italian politician of the conservative new Forza Italia (2009-2013 Popolo della Libertà , before Forza Italia ). He was a member of the European Commission from 2008 to 2014 and President of the European Parliament from 2017 to 2019 .

Life

During his high school days in the 1970s, Tajani is said to have sympathized with the extreme right ; He was a member of the Stella e Corona by Alfredo Covelli, which later became part of the Movimento Sociale Italiano .

Tajani graduated from La Sapienza University in Rome with a law degree .

In 1982 Tajani was editor of the Italian newspaper Il Settimanale , and in 1983 he ran the newspaper Il Giornale . Tajani was one of the founders of the Forza Italia party in 1993. After the parliamentary elections in March 1994 , the new Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi appointed him press spokesman for his cabinet .

Tajani has been a member of the Rome City Council since June 2001.

Member of the European Parliament

Tajani at the EPP Congress 2012

Tajani became a member of the European Parliament for the first time after the European elections in 1994 . He belonged to the EPP-ED Group , of which he was also Vice-Chair. He was also head of the Forza Italia delegation in the European Parliament and a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs . He left Parliament in 2008 to join the EU Commission.

After moving back in 2014, he was one of the Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament until 2017. He also sat on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and in the delegations for relations with Brazil , Mercosur and the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly.

In 2017 he succeeded Martin Schulz as President of the European Parliament. On July 3, 2019, his compatriot David Sassoli was elected as his successor in this office.

In the 9th electoral term of the European Parliament, Tajani has been Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Conference of Committee Chairs since July 2019 .

EU commission

From May 2008 to February 2010, Tajani was EU Commissioner for Transport , succeeding the French Jacques Barrot , who in turn took over the interior department from Franco Frattini , who left the Commission to become Italian Foreign Minister. From 2010 to 2014 Tajani was Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry in the Barroso II Commission and Vice-President of the European Commission . In May 2014, he resigned from the EU Commission to take his place as Member of the European Parliament, which he won in the 2014 European elections . For a few months, Nelli Feroci succeeded him as EU Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry.

In November 2014, Tajani waived a transitional allowance of 468,000 euros (36 monthly payments of 13,000 euros each); Former EU commissioners receive such a transitional allowance as compensation for the fact that after the mandate they are practically barred from activities that could be related to their previous tasks. If a former Commissioner becomes a member of the European Parliament (MEP), he can also receive the transitional allowance; this is compatible with the salaries of a MEP. Tajani justified his decision to the outgoing Commission President José Manuel Barroso by saying that he considered it appropriate to set a sign of moderation and solidarity in these very difficult times for European citizens.

criticism

In February 2019, Tajani said in a speech in Basovizza: "Long live Italian Istria , long live Italian Dalmatia and Italian exiles!" He explicitly stated that he was not only here as an Italian and a patriot, but also as President of the European Parliament . At the commemoration was u. a. and Matteo Salvini present. The Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković criticized Tajani's statements, the Slovenian Prime Minister Marjan Šarec described Tajani's statements as “historical revisionism” and EU Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc condemned Tajani's “distortion of historical facts”.

In March 2019, Tajani said in an interview that Mussolini had "also done positive things", namely, among other things, "built roads, bridges, buildings, sports facilities."

literature

Web links

Commons : Antonio Tajani  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Alessandro Gilioli: Chi è Tajani, da Previti a Bruxelles L'Espresso , January 17, 2017.
  2. EU Parliament Antonio Tajani
  3. https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2019-07/italiener-david-sassoli-wird-neuer-eu-parlamentspraesident accessed on July 3, 2019
  4. ^ "Toh, c'è un politico italiano che rinuncia a 468mila euro" , IlGiornale.it , November 11, 2014.
  5. Andreas Ernst: Italian historical revisionism outraged Croatians and Slovenes Neue Zürcher Zeitung , February 12, 2019; Peter Müller: Antonio Tajani outraged with historical derailment Der Spiegel , February 13, 2019.
  6. Ralf Streck: President of the European Parliament Tajani: "Mussolini did positive things" Telepolis , March 15, 2019.