Tajani To Run For Second Term As EU Parliament President In 2019 - Reports

Rukhshan Mir (@rukhshanmir) Published January 23, 2019 | 05:08 PM

European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who has held this position since 2017, is going to run for a second 2.5-year term in the 2019 election, a European online newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing Tajani's spokesman

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd January, 2019) European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, who has held this position since 2017, is going to run for a second 2.5-year term in the 2019 election, a European online newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing Tajani's spokesman.

The center-right Italian politician hopes to be re-elected as European Parliament member in the election, slated for late May, and to be subsequently re-elected as the president of the institution, his spokesman confirmed to EUobserver in an email on Tuesday.

Tajani, 65, was elected as the president of the European Parliament in January 2017 after four rounds of voting. He defeated center-left politician Gianni Pitella, having secured 351 votes compared to Pitella's 282, and thus replaced Martin Schulz, who is currently the only European Parliament president who has served two terms.

While Tajani has been praised for focusing on EU-African relations in the context of migration during his presidency, some members of the parliament tend to be quite critical of his policies.

A European Parliament member told the newspaper on condition of anonymity that Schulz had been better that Tajani in promoting the institution in international media.

"He is very much interfering the political debate at national level in Italy ... I believe that the role of the European parliament president should be very much impartial and neutral, in order to bring forward the entire views and positions of the entire parliament," Eleonora Evi, an Italian member of the European Parliament, told EUobserver.

Before being elected as the European Parliament president, Tajani has served as European commissioner for transport, European commissioner for industry and entrepreneurship, and also a vice-president of the European Parliament.