Antonio Tajani (born 4 August 1953 in Rome) is an Italian politician and President of the European Parliament since January 2017. Before then, he was one of the fourteen vice-presidents of the European Parliament and the European Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship, and was also one of the vice-presidents of the European Commission.
After attending Liceo Torquato Tasso in Rome, he earned a degree in Law at the Sapienza University of Rome.
Tajani was an officer in the Italian Air Forces. After attending a specialized air defense course at Borgo Piave di Latina, he became radar controller for air defense at the Italian Air Force radar base of San Giovanni Teatino.
Tajani has been a professional journalist, editor of parliamentary affairs for the weekly Il Settimanale, presenter of Rai Radio 1 news programme, and head of the Rome editorial office of the newspaper Il Giornale. He was special envoy to Lebanon, the Soviet Union and Somalia. Besides Italian, he speaks English, French and Spanish.
He is married, with two children.
In his youth Tajani was a militant of Fronte Monarchico Giovanile (Youth Monarchist Front), a student organization of the Monarchist party of Italy. Even later, he has always advocated for the return from exile of the House of Savoy (banned according to the Italian Constitution until 2002, when the Italian Parliament lifted the ban)