EU parliament head seriously ill in hospital

European Parliament President David Sassoli has been hospitalised in Italy since Dec. 26 due to a "serious complication" related to his immune system, his office said on Monday. Sassoli, 65, has been president of the 705-seat parliament since 2019.

European Parliament President David Sassoli has been hospitalised in Italy since Dec. 26 due to a "serious complication" related to his immune system, his office said on Monday. Sassoli, an Italian centre-left politician, was also treated in a French hospital for pneumonia in September, it said.

"This hospitalisation (in Italy) was necessary because of a serious complication due to a dysfunction of the immune system," his office said in a statement. Sassoli, 65, has been president of the 705-seat parliament since 2019. His term ends this month and he is not expected to seek a second one.

Due to illness, he was unable to chair the Strasbourg-based parliament in recent weeks and missed the European Commission's annual state of the union event in September.