UPDATE - David-Maria Sassoli elected new head of EU Parliament

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By Fatih Hafiz Mehmet

ANKARA (AA) - David-Maria Sassoli was elected the EU Parliament's new president on Wednesday, the EP's Twitter account announced.

Sassoli was the candidate of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D) for the position and was elected by the votes of the members of the European Parliament.

Before today he was the parliament's vice-president.

Sassoli, a former journalist, was born in Florence in 1956 and in 2009 was elected an MEP from Italy's leftist Democratic Party.

After not getting an absolute majority of votes in the first round, Sassoli was elected in the second round with 345 votes.

The EP's previous president Antonio Tajani is also Italian.

The president serves for two-and-a-half years.

He is responsible for managing work of the parliament, approving the EU's budget, and signing the laws of the EU along with the president of the EU Council.