Mateusz Morawiecki

Mateusz Jakub Morawiecki (; born 20 June 1968) is a Polish economist, historian and politician who served as the prime minister of Poland between 2017 and 2023. A member of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, he previously served in the cabinet of prime minister Beata Szydło as deputy prime minister from 2015 to 2017, Minister of Development from 2015 to 2018 and Minister of Finance from 2016 to 2018. Prior to his political appointment, Morawiecki had an extensive business career.

Born in Wrocław, Morawiecki became heavily engaged in anti-communist movements in his youth. He attended the University of Wrocław and extended his education at the University of Hamburg and University of Basel. He obtained degrees in arts, business administration and advanced studies. From 1996 to 2004, Morawiecki lectured at the Wrocław University of Economics, as well as from 1996 to 1998 at the Wrocław University of Technology. From 1998, Morawiecki worked for Bank Zachodni WBK from the Santander Group, where he was promoted to the position of managing director and eventually chairman.

On 11 December 2017, following prime minister Szydło's resignation, Morawiecki was nominated to succeed her by the chief staff of the Law and Justice party, which he joined in 2016. He led the party to win a second-term in the 2019 Polish parliamentary election. On 27 November 2023, after the United Right had failed to secure majority in the Sejm in the 2023 Polish parliamentary election, Morawiecki became the leader of a caretaker government. On 11 December 2023, Morawiecki lost the vote of confidence from the Sejm, effectively terminating his cabinet's tenure. He remained acting prime minister until 13 December 2023, when his successor and leader of the opposition Donald Tusk was sworn in as prime minister.

Early life and education

Mateusz Morawiecki was born 20 June 1968 in Wrocław, Silesia, to Kornel Morawiecki (physicist and Fighting Solidarity leader) and his wife Jadwiga.

Morawiecki stated in a press interview that at the age of 12 he helped his father copying underground political literature and in August 1980 he plastered the streets of Wrocław with posters calling for a general strike. After martial law was declared in 1981, he helped print and distribute underground Solidarity magazines. As a son of a well known opposition activist, he was sometimes detained and intimidated by the police. In an interview, he said he threw Molotov cocktails at police cars and was on many occasions stopped and beaten by Poland's secret police (''Służba Bezpieczeństwa'', ''SB''). Another reason for this was his sympathising with the Hippie movement as an early teenager, a time during which he underwent an arrest due to alleged cannabis possession. This was also the time he first encountered Ryszard Terlecki – a precursor of the Hippie movement in Poland, and later one of his close coworkers. In connection to this, Morawiecki has mentioned that his colleague from the PiS party "knows perfectly well what fighting for freedom means".

In the 1980s, at the age of 12, he edited an illegal political newspaper ''Lower Silesia Bulletin'' and was active in the Independent Students' Association. He continued taking part in political demonstrations until the late 1980s and participated in occupation strikes at the University of Wroclaw in 1988 and 1989. He co-organised the Club for Political Thought "Free and Solidary".

Morawiecki is an alumnus of the University of Wrocław (history, 1992), Wrocław University of Technology (1993), Wrocław University of Economics (Business Administration, 1995), the University of Hamburg (European Law and Economic Integration, 1995–97), and the University of Basel (European Studies, 1995–97). While at the Wrocław University of Technology, he studied abroad at Central Connecticut State University and completed an advanced executive programme at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

Business career

In 1991 Morawiecki began work at Cogito Company and co-created two publishing firms, Reverentia and Enter Marketing-Publishing. That same year he co-founded the magazine ''Dwa Dni'' (Two Days), later becoming editor-in-chief.

In 1995 he completed an internship at Deutsche Bundesbank in credit analysis, financial restructuring, banking supervision, and financial market supervision. In 1996–97 he conducted banking and macroeconomic research at the University of Frankfurt. In 1998, as deputy director of the Accession Negotiations Department in the Committee for European Integration, he oversaw and participated in numerous areas, including finance, of the negotiations for Polish accession to the European Union.

With Frank Emmert, he co-authored the first textbook on ''The Law of the European Union'' published in Poland.

From 1996 to 2004 Morawiecki lectured at the Wrocław University of Economics, and from 1996 to 1998 also at the Wrocław University of Technology. He sat on policy committees at many institutions of higher education. From 1998 to 2001 he was a member of the supervisory boards of the Wałbrzych Power Company, Dialog (a local telephone-service provider), and the Industrial Development Agency. From 1998 to 2002 he was a member of the Lower Silesian Regional Assembly.

From November 1998 Morawiecki worked for Bank Zachodni WBK, Santander Group, where he began his career as deputy chair of the supervisory board, and supervisor of the economic analysis bureau and the international trade department. In 2001 he became managing director and a member of the board. In 2007–15 Morawiecki was chairman of Bank Zachodni WBK.

Political career

Deputy Prime Minister (2015–2017)

On 16 November 2015, President Andrzej Duda appointed Morawiecki as both Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development in the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Beata Szydło. (This took place soon after Mateusz Morawiecki's father, Kornel Morawiecki, was elected to Poland's lower chamber of the parliament and the Law and Justice party won the 2015 parliamentary elections.)

In March 2016, Morawiecki announced that he had joined the Law and Justice party.

Finance Minister (2016–2017)

On 28 September 2016, in addition to his other positions, Morawiecki was appointed Minister of Finance, becoming the second most powerful member of the Government, overseeing the budget, government finances, European Union funds, and overall economic policy.

As finance minister, Morawiecki outlined an ambitious "Plan for Responsible Development", known colloquially as the "Morawiecki Plan", aimed at stimulating economic growth and raising revenues for generous government plans, including "Family 500+" child benefits for all families with two or more children. In March 2017, he took part in a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Baden-Baden, becoming Poland's first-ever representative at that summit.

Prime Minister (2017–2023)

First term (2017–2019)

In December 2017, Jarosław Kaczyński, the Chairman of the Law and Justice party, declared that he no longer had confidence in Beata Szydło to be the party's prime ministerial candidate, in part due to perceived conflict between her and other European Union leaders. With her position untenable, Szydło resigned, and Morawiecki quickly won internal party approval to be nominated as her successor. He was sworn in as prime minister of Poland on 11 December, immediately appointing Szydło as his deputy. In his first major address to Sejm, he pledged "continuity" rather than radical change.

In January 2018, following a highly public racist incident in Warsaw, Morawiecki declared: "There is no place in Poland for racism. The attack on a girl because of her skin color deserves the strongest condemnation. We shall do everything to make Poland safe for everyone."

At the Munich Security Conference on 17 February that year, Morawiecki said "it is not going to be seen as criminal to say that there were Polish perpetrators, as there were Jewish perpetrators, as there were Russian perpetrators, as there were Ukrainian perpetrators, not only German perpetrators." His remark roused controversy and prompted criticism by prominent Israeli politicians, including Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. The crisis was resolved in late June that year when the Polish and Israeli prime ministers issued a joint communiqué endorsing research into the Jewish Holocaust and condemning the expression, "Polish concentration camps".

As other Visegrád Group leaders, Morawiecki opposes any compulsory EU long-term quota on redistribution of migrants. In May 2018, Morawiecki said: "Proposals by the European Union that impose quotas on us hit the very foundations of national sovereignty."

In July 2018, Morawiecki said he "will not rest" until "the whole truth" of the World War II-era massacres in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia has been explained. Between 1942 and 1945, members of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) killed up to 100,000 civilians in what is now Western Ukraine.

On the issue of Brexit, Morawiecki told the BBC in January 2019 that more and more Polish people are returning to Poland from the UK and he hoped the trend would continue to help boost the Polish economy.

In January 2019, Morawiecki said that "Hitler's Germany fed on fascist ideology... But all the evil came from this (German) state and we cannot forget that, because otherwise we relativise evil." Morawiecki wants Germany to pay World War II reparations for the destruction it caused during World War II. In August 2019, he said that "Poland has yet to receive proper compensation from Germany… We lost six million people over the course of the war — many more than did countries that received major reparations."

Second term (2019–2023)

On 13 October 2019, Morawiecki led PiS to a re-election victory in that year's parliamentary election. PiS won its highest ever vote in a parliamentary election to date, taking in 43.6% of the national vote and retaining majority government. At the first sitting of the Sejm of the 9th term, he resigned from the Council of Ministers (pursuant to Article 162(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland), which was accepted by the President on the same day.

On 15 September 2020, the Voivodeship administrative court in Warsaw ruled that the decision of Morawiecki to hold the elections only by postal vote on 10 May 2020 was a "gross violation of the law and was issued without egalgrounds" and violated article 7 of the Polish Constitution, article 157, paragraph 1 and article 187, paragraph 1 and 2 of the Electoral Code. The opposition demanded Morawiecki's resignation.

In October 2021, Morawiecki accused the European Union of blackmail over several issues. However, he downplayed the possibility of a "Polexit" and said that the threat of economic sanctions was a "direct challenge". In July 2021, he became the vice-president of Law and Justice.

In December 2021, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to Warsaw for talks with Morawiecki. They discussed Poland’s dispute with the EU over the rule of law, the long-term EU climate policies and the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which would bring Russian gas to Germany and bypass Poland. Morawiecki said "we do not want people to suffer as a result" of EU's Green Deal, accusing the bloc's Emissions Trading System of contributing to the 2021 global energy crisis. From 10 February to 26 April 2022, he performed the duties of the Minister of Finance after the dismissal of Tadeusz Kościński.

In January 2023, Morawiecki said he supported the death penalty.

In February 2023, as the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine entered its second year, Morawiecki told Hungarian President Katalin Novák in a formal meeting at the Bucharest Nine summit in Warsaw that "We must prepare for years-long deterrence and defence against the Russian threat."

In February 2023, Morawiecki said that Poland would "use its own good relations" with Turkey under Erdoğan to persuade it "to the fastest possible, and preferably concurrent, accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO."

In March 2023, he visited Saudi Arabia and met with Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman.

In March 2023, after Xi Jinping's three-day visit to Russia, Morawiecki expressed concern about a "dangerous" China-Russian alliance. On 14 April after the visit of Emmanuel Macron to Beijing, where he met Xi Jinping and caused alarm in Washington because he spoke of France's "sovereign autonomy", Morawiecki went there and read a prepared paper to a diplomatic audience. In those remarks he said that "You can not protect Ukraine today and tomorrow by saying that Taiwan is none of our business. You have to support Ukraine if you want Taiwan to remain independent. If Ukraine is conquered, the next day China can attack Taiwan. I see here a very big connection, a lot of correlation between the situation in Ukraine and the situation in Taiwan and China." This caused the Chinese MFA to react sharply and inimically.

In April 2023, Morawiecki told the Atlantic Council think-tank that: "Our relationship with Hungary changed a lot because of the position of Hungary toward Ukraine and Russia" after the invasion. "We had once very strong cooperation on the level of the Visegrad group zech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia now much less so."

In July 2023, Morawiecki warned that Poland is not planning to open its borders to imports of agricultural products from Ukraine, saying "We protect our agriculture, that’s why we don’t open borders for agricultural goods from Ukraine."

Morawiecki response to Zelensky's 2023 UN Speech

Zelensky's UN Speech in 2023 surprised many members of the Polish political establishment, as the Ukrainian leader accused his Polish counterpart of complicity with Russia due to his refusal to reopen Poland's borders to imports of the agricultural products from Ukraine. Morawiecki's reaction was characterised by immaturity, emotionalism, and hawkish actions, which exacerbated tensions unnecessarily. Rather than pursuing pragmatic diplomatic channels, Morawiecki and the Law and Justice Party opted for a confrontational approach, such as banning future military aid to Ukraine, which was disproportionate and populist. Morawiecki's claim of acting in Poland's national interest lacked credibility and was seen as a cynical move to gain nationalist votes during the parliamentary election campaign, undermining liberal support for Law and Justice. Morawiecki's hawkish response also reflected a dependence on Kaczyński's leadership and failed to convey Poland's commitment to Ukrainian aspirations and regional stability. While attempting to assert Poland's position, Morawiecki's actions damaged the country's reputation as a reliable international actor and neglected the tradition of fostering strong alliances, particularly with allies facing adversity.

Under his government, hundreds of people, including leading opposition figures, were spied on using Pegasus software. Among those targeted whose names have been revealed are Krzysztof Brejza (Civic Platform campaign leader), former foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski, former finance minister Jacek Rostowski, Michał Kołodziejczak (leader of a peasant protest movement). In addition to these leading figures, there are also former ministers from Donald Tusk's first governments (2007–2014), three retired Polish army generals, two lobbyists for US arms firms, the president of one of the main employers' organisations, as well as a number of PiS representatives. Much of the information obtained with the software, notably SMS and e-mail correspondence, was made public in manipulated forms by public television. The latter, which was aligned with the government, used this information to organise campaigns to discredit opposition figures.

Third term (2023)

In October 2023, he was re-elected as a member of the Sejm. On 6 November, President Andrzej Duda in his message to the nation announced he would designate Morawiecki as prime minister. On 27 November, he was confirmed as prime minister with a new cabinet. However, heavy losses for Law and Justice left his cabinet well short of majority support in the Sejm. An opposition coalition fronted by former prime minister Donald Tusk had enough seats between them to defeat Morawiecki and nominate Tusk in his place. As expected, Morawiecki's cabinet was defeated in the legislature on 11 December, and Tusk was elected his successor.

Post-premiership (2023–present)

On 14 January 2025, Morawiecki was appointed president of European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR), succeeding Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni with Romanian AUR chairman George Simion as his vice-president. In February, Morawiecki was charged with abuse of power over his decision to hold the 2020 presidential elections solely by postal ballot. On 14 March, he accompanied Simion in Bucharest to the Central Electoral Bureau to file the latter's candidacy for president of Romania, following the annulment of the 2024 presidential election due to alleged Russian meddling in favour of first round winner Călin Georgescu.

Personal life

Morawiecki is married to Iwona Morawiecka, with whom he has four children: two daughters (Olga and Magdalena) and two sons (Jeremiasz and Ignacy).

Other posts

* Ex-officio member, Board of Governors, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)
* Ex-officio member, Board of Governors, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Honours

:
* Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2015)
* Cross of Freedom and Solidarity (2013)
* Honorary Badge "For Merits to Banking of the Republic of Poland" (2011)
* Silver Cross of the Fighting Solidarity (2021)

:
* Grand Cross of the Order for Merits to Lithuania (2019)

:
* Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 2nd class (2022)

In 2008 Morawiecki was made Honorary Consul of the Republic of Ireland in Poland. In 2013 he was awarded the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. In 2015, he became the recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. In 2019, he was awarded the title ''Man of the Year'' at the annual Krynica Economic Forum. He has also received other distinctions from economic clubs, universities, publishing houses, and cultural institutions.

References

External links

Bank Zachodni WBK Profile

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morawiecki, Mateusz
1968 births
Living people
Critics of multiculturalism
Deputy prime ministers of Poland
Ministers of finance of Poland
Government ministers of Poland
Knights of the Order of Polonia Restituta
Law and Justice politicians
Members of the Polish Sejm 2019–2023
Polish economists
Polish male non-fiction writers
Polish publishers (people)
Polish Roman Catholics
Polish anti-communists
Politicians from Wrocław
Prime ministers of Poland
Recipients of Cross of Freedom and Solidarity
University of Basel alumni
University of Wrocław alumni
Wrocław University of Economics alumni
Wrocław University of Technology alumni
University of Hamburg alumni
Recipients of the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 2nd class
Commander's Grand Crosses of the Order for Merits to Lithuania
Members of the Polish Sejm 2023–2027