Politicians need to convey to citizens late European Union parliament speaker David Sassoli's "sense of wonder at our common European project", Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Wednesday.
"When David came to meet me, he used to look at these founding treaties on display with eyes that were always full of wonder," Di Maio said at a ceremony to rename the foreign ministry's treaties hall after Sassoli.
"I hope we'll all be able to transmit together that sense of wonder at our common European project that he always nurtured every day."
"David was a great Italian and a committed pro-European," Di Maio said.
The ceremony inaugurating the David Sassoli European Treaties Hall was attended by Senate speaker Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, lower house of parliament Roberto Fico and by Sassoli's widow and their two children.
Sassoli, a Left Democrat died in hospital in Aviano, northeast Italy on 11 January aged 65 after a long struggle with ill-health triggered by multiple myeloma.
