Press conference by Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), newly elected President of the European Parliament, during the EP plenary session (16-19 January) in Strasbourg.

TAJANI, Antonio (EPP, IT)

Strasbourg

press conference

election of the President of the European Parliament (T)

Extracts from the press conference by Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), newly elected President of the European Parliament

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), new elected President of the European Parliament , I want to dedicate my victory to the Italian citizens who are victims of the recent earthquake. I think all of us in this house, should think about that. They are going through a difficult time, it&rsquo;s extremely cold, we must not forget them, and we must not forget the victims of economic problems.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), Jointly what we should do, when it comes to Brexit, we are going to work hard on that. Parliament should be able to make its voice heard with the Commission, Mr Verhofstadt - his name was put forward as a representative, he is Mr Brexit, if you want, in the EP. He will not speak on his behalf, he will be speaking on behalf of the whole Parliament and parliament&rsquo;s committees whom will have a role to play as well.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), I&rsquo;m talking about being President not only of the majority, but the guarantor of the decisions that are taken in the Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), The agreement on the first half of mandate of this Parliament has indeed come to an end, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean to say that we can&rsquo;t have links with the socialists and indeed other groups. I will try to forge those links and work to that end. S&amp;D group is the second biggest group in the EP, naturally it can&rsquo;t be simply excluded from political initiatives and political debates, or parliamentary activities. So I will work with all. Obviously we&rsquo;ve had an internal electoral campaign, with a lot of candidates, but the day after the campaign we have to stop thinking about that, and start thinking what can we do together.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI (EPP, IT), As far as the seat of the EP is concerns, there is a treaty, the Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled and those rules has to be met, and complied with. I always tried to do that, I respect the rules and the treaty, and that is what I&rsquo;m going to continue to do.