Jacek Emil Saryusz-Wolski (born 19 September 1948) is a Polish diplomat and PiS (

Law and Justice Law and Justice ( , PiS) is a Right-wing populism, right-wing populist and National conservatism, national-conservative List of political parties in Poland, political party in Poland. The party is a member of European Conservatives and Refo ...

) politician. He has been a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) since June 2004.European Parliament website, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski
/ref> He served as vice president of the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

(2004–2007). Saryusz-Wolski is chairman of the executive board of the “Foundation College of Europe”, in charge of the Natolin campus of the

College of Europe The College of Europe (; ; ) is a post-graduate institute of European studies with three campuses in Bruges, Belgium; Warsaw, Poland; and Tirana, Albania. The College of Europe in Bruges was founded in 1949 as a result of the 1948 Congress of ...

Early life and education

Saryusz-Wolski comes from a family of the

Jelita coat of arms Jelita is a Polish heraldry, Polish coat of arms. It was used by several szlachta families. History One of the oldest Polish coats of arms. First depicted on the seal of Tomisław z Mokrska from 1316. Additionally, the Polish medieval chronicle ...

. His father, Emil, a chemical engineer, was stationed with Polish troops in Britain during the Second World War, while his mother, Eryka, worked as a landscape gardener.Martin Banks (April 13, 2005)
Pole Positioner
''

European Voice ''Politico Europe'' (stylized as ''POLITICO Europe'') is the European edition of the American news organization ''Politico'' reporting on political affairs of the European Union. Its headquarters are located in Brussels with additional offices in ...

''. He graduated from the First High School of "Nicolaus Copernicus" in

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

and he obtained a degree in economics from the

University of Łódź The University of Łódź (, ) is a public research university founded in 1945 in Łódź, Poland, as a continuation of three higher education institutions functioning in Łódź in the interwar period — the Teacher Training Institute (192 ...

. He also completed postgraduate studies at the ''Centre Européen Universitaire'' in

Nancy, France Nancy is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the northeastern Departments of France, French department of Meurthe-et-Moselle. It was the capital of the Duchy of Lorraine, which was Lorraine and Barrois, annexed by France under King Louis X ...

. In the 1970s he was a lecturer on the

European Communities The European Communities (EC) were three international organizations that were governed by the same set of Institutions of the European Union, institutions. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Co ...

at the

and in the 1980s he was an assistant professor in the Department of Socialist Political Economy of the

. At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s led the Center for European Studies at the University of Łódź.

Political career

Saryusz-Wolski was nominated the first Polish

plenipotentiary A ''plenipotentiary'' (from the Latin ''plenus'' "full" and ''potens'' "powerful") is a diplomat who has full powers—authorization to sign a treaty or convention on behalf of a sovereign. When used as a noun more generally, the word can als ...

for European integration and foreign aids (''pełnomocnik ds. integracji europejskiej i pomocy zagranicznej'') when this office was created in 1991 by the prime minister

Jan Krzysztof Bielecki Jan Krzysztof Bielecki (born 3 May 1951) is a Polish liberal politician and economist. A leading figure of the Gdańsk-based Liberal Democratic Congress in the early 1990s, Bielecki served as Prime Minister of Poland for most of 1991. In his p ...

. He held this position till 1996, despite the frequent government changes. He returned to the government in 2000, when the prime minister

Jerzy Buzek Jerzy Karol Buzek (; born 3 July 1940) is a Polish politician and former Member of the European Parliament from Poland. He has served as Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001, since being elected to the European Parliament in 2004, he serv ...

has nominated him a secretary in the European Integration Committee (''Komitet Integracji Europejskiej''). Jacek Saryusz-Wolski played an important role in the negotiations in

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one millionEuropean Parliament election on 13 June 2004, as a candidate of

Civic Platform The Civic Platform (, PO)The party is officially the Civic Platform of the Republic of Poland (''Platforma Obywatelska Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''). is a Centre-right politics, centre-right liberal conservative political party in Poland. Since ...

, in the constituency #6 ( Łódź Voivodship) receiving 66,589 votes (that is 16.92%, the best result in the region). On 20 July 2004, he was elected as one of the Vice Presidents of the European Parliament for the EPP, and was at the position till 16 January 2007.Website of Platforma Obywatelska, Jacek Saryusz-Wolski
/ref> He was re-elected in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

and

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

. Since first joining the European Parliament, Saryusz-Wolski has been a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which he chaired between 2007 and 2009. In late 2004, Saryusz-Wolski's candidacy to become Poland’s first-ever European Commissioner was supported by the main Polish opposition parties but the post eventually went to the country’s Europe minister,

Danuta Hübner Danuta Maria Hübner (, or ; born 8 April 1948) is a Polish politician, diplomat, and economist and Member of the European Parliament. She was European Commissioner for Regional Policy from 22 November 2004 until 4 July 2009, when she resigned t ...

. In March 2006, Saryusz-Wolski was elected vice president of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

(EPP)Dr. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, official website
/ref> for a three-year term. He also served as vice-president and member of the national board of

until October 2010 and as leader of the Polish delegation of centre-right MEPs until 2012. In 2007, the Civic Platform failed to secure sufficient backing from within the centre-right

European People’s Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

Group for Saryusz-Wolski, its candidate as for the post of vice-president of the European Parliament.Andrew Bounds (January 16, 2007)
Polish and German MEPs fight over key jobs
''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

''. In 2010, Saryusz-Wolski joined the ''Friends of the EEAS'', a unofficial and independent pressure group formed because of concerns that the

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission (HR/VP) is the chief co-ordinator and representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) within the European Un ...

Catherine Ashton Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland (born 20 March 1956) is a Labour Party (UK), British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of th ...

was not paying sufficient attention to the Parliament and was sharing too little information on the formation of the

European External Action Service The European External Action Service (EEAS) is the diplomatic service in charge of executing all Foreign relations of the European Union, international relations of the European Union. The EEAS is led by the Vice-President of the European Co ...

. In addition to his parliamentary assignments, Saryusz-Wolski chaired the EPP Energy Ministers Meeting until 2017. In 2015, he and

Françoise Grossetête Françoise Grossetête (born 17 May 1946) is a French politician who served as Member of the European Parliament for the South-East of France from 1994 until 2019. She is a member of The Republicans; part of the European People's Party. Early l ...

guided the EPP’s working groups on economy and environment and foreign affairs in developing options for getting the EU to speak with a unified voice on external energy security matters. In March 2017, the

Polish government The government of Poland takes the form of a Unitary state, unitary semi-presidential republic, semi-presidential Representative democracy, representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Poland, president is the head of state and t ...

of Prime Minister

Beata Szydło Beata Maria Szydło (, née Kusińska ; born 15 April 1963) is a Polish politician who has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019. A member of Law and Justice (PiS), she previously served as the prime minister of Poland f ...

openly opposed the reelection of

Donald Tusk Donald Franciszek Tusk (born 22 April 1957) is a Polish politician and historian who has served as the prime minister of Poland since 2023, previously holding the office from 2007 to 2014. Tusk served as the president of the European Council (20 ...

President of the European Council The president of the European Council is the person presiding over and driving forward the work of the European Council on the world stage. This Institutions of the European Union, institution comprises the college of heads of state or governme ...

for a second two-and-a-half year term and put forward Saryusz-Wolski as a challenger. After Saryusz-Wolski accepted the nomination for council president, Civic Platform ejected him from the party. He was subsequently stripped of his position of vice-president within the EPP. He also stopped being a member of the EPP group in the Parliament. In February 2019, he was appointed as the leader of the

(PiS) list in the

European elections Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Until 2019, 751 ...

in constituency No. 4 (Warsaw). In March of the same year he joined the parliamentary group of

European Conservatives and Reformists European Conservatives and Reformists may refer to: *European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR Party), a soft Eurosceptic European political party *European Conservatives and Reformists Group The European Conservatives and Reformists ...

. As a result of the May vote, he was elected the MEP for the fourth time, receiving 186,851 votes.

Political positions

Saryusz-Wolski is widely regarded as having played a big role in the 2004

Orange Revolution The Orange Revolution () was a series of protests that led to political upheaval in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005. It gained momentum primarily due to the initiative of the general population, sparked by the aftermath of the ...

in Ukraine and in support for the opposition in

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

. In the debate on the EU’s energy diversification and security policies, he has in the past argued that “

Nord Stream 2 Nord Stream 2 (German language, German–English language, English mixed expression for "North Stream 2"; ) is a natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany running through the Baltic Sea, financed by Gazprom and several European energy compani ...

would be, above all, detrimental in geopolitical terms . . . for the purpose of exerting more political pressure and applying blackmail on the EU, its eastern member states and its eastern neighbours.” In 2015, news media reported that Saryusz-Wolski was included in a Russian blacklist of prominent people from the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

who are not allowed to enter the country.

Other activities

* European Policy Centre, member of the Strategic Council * European Union Institute at

Collegium Civitas Civitas University ( Polish: ''Uniwersytet Civitas'') is one of Poland's leading non-public higher education institutions. It is a member of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP) and the Conference of Rectors of Non-Pub ...

, director * Natolin European Centre, chairman * College of Europe Foundation at the

campus in Natolin, chairman * Euro-Atlantic Association, member * Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM), deputy chairman * German-Polish-Ukrainian Society (GPUS), member

Recognition

Saryusz-Wolski has been awarded the Commander's Cross of the

Order of Polonia Restituta The Order of Polonia Restituta (, ) is a Polish state decoration, state Order (decoration), order established 4 February 1921. It is conferred on both military and civilians as well as on alien (law), foreigners for outstanding achievements in ...

(2003), the French

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

(2003), the Ukrainian Order of Merit of 1st Class (2006), the Georgian St. George's Order of Victory (2013).

Personal life

Saryusz-Wolski is married to his wife, Grazyna, a professor in English literature at Lodz University. The couple have a son and a daughter.

References

External links

Nauka Polska

College of Europe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saryusz-Wolski, Jacek 1948 births Living people College of Europe alumni Law and Justice MEPs MEPs for Poland 2004–2009 MEPs for Poland 2009–2014 MEPs for Poland 2014–2019 Academic staff of the University of Łódź University of Łódź alumni MEPs for Poland 2019–2024 Academic staff of Collegium Civitas