Grzegorz Juliusz Schetyna () (born 18 February 1963) is a Polish politician who has been Leader of Civic Platform and

Leader of the Opposition The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...

from 26 January 2016 to 25 January 2020. He has served as

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (''Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych'', MSZ) is the Polish government department tasked with maintaining Poland's international relations and coordinating its participation in international and regional supra-nation ...

from 2014 to 2015,

Marshal of the Sejm The Marshal of the Sejm , also known as Sejm Marshal, Chairman of the Sejm or Speaker of the Sejm ( pl, Marszałek Sejmu, ) is the Speaker (politics), speaker (chairperson, chair) of the Sejm, the lower house of the Parliament of Poland, Polish ...

from 2010 to 2011,

Acting President of Poland The acting president of the Republic of Poland ( pl, pełniący obowiązki prezydenta Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, or ''p.o. prezydenta RP'') is a temporary post provided for by the Polish Constitution. The constitution states that the president is ...

2010,

Deputy Prime Minister of Poland Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland is the deputy of the Prime Minister of Poland and member of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland. They can also be one of the Ministries of the Republic of Poland, Ministers of the Rep ...

from 2007 to 2009 and Minister of the Interior and Administration 2007 to 2009. He has been a Member of the Sejm from 1997.

Early career

In the early 1990s, Schetyna co-founded a commercial broadcaster,

Radio Eska Radio Eska is a commercial radio station in Poland. The radio has organized Polish awards ceremony Eska Music Awards since 2002. External linksRadio Eska webpage Radio stations in Poland Mass media in Warsaw Radio stations established i ...

, and chaired the

Śląsk Wrocław Wrocławski Klub Sportowy Śląsk Wrocław Spółka Akcyjna, commonly known as WKS Śląsk Wrocław, Śląsk Wrocław () or simply Śląsk, is a Polish football club based in Wrocław that plays in Ekstraklasa, the highest level of the Polish fo ...

basketball team in 1994–97.

Political career

Early beginnings

In the late 1980s, Schetyna headed the

University of Wrocław , ''Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Breslau'' (before 1945) , free_label = Specialty programs , free = , colors = Blue , website uni.wroc.pl The University of Wrocław ( pl, Uniwersytet Wrocławski, U ...

’s branch of the Independent Students’ Union, the student arm of the

Solidarność Solidarity ( pl, „Solidarność”, ), full name Independent Self-Governing Trade Union "Solidarity" (, abbreviated ''NSZZ „Solidarność”'' ), is a Polish trade union founded in August 1980 at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland. Subseq ...

(Solidarity) trade-union movement, before holding a series of posts in the Liberal-Democratic Congress and then the Freedom Union party in the 1990s, along with

Donald Tusk Donald Franciszek Tusk ( , ; born 22 April 1957) is a Polish politician who was President of the European Council from 2014 to 2019. He served as the 14th Prime Minister of Poland from 2007 to 2014 and was a co-founder and leader of the Civic Pla ...

and several other key figures in Polish politics. When Tusk co-founded Civic Platform in 2001, Schetyna became secretary-general. Schetyna was first elected to the

Sejm The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...

as a candidate of the Freedom Union in the national elections on 21 September 1997 after receiving 13 013 (3,17%) in 50

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

district. Following the 2007 parliamentary election, he served as

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...

and Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration under

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

. As interior minister, he championed the badly needed renovation of provincial roads in Poland. In a 2009 cabinet reshuffle, he left the government abruptly amid tensions between his faction within the ruling Civic Platform party and Tusk. Schetyna was also a member of Sejm 1997–2001, Sejm 2001–2005, Sejm 2005–2007, Sejm 2007–2011. After stepping down, he moved to the post of head of the Civic Platform Sejm caucus.

Marshal of the Sejm

Following Bronisław Komorowski's victory in the 2010 presidential election, Schetyna was nominated as the Civic Platform's candidate to succeed the

President-elect An ''officer-elect'' is a person who has been elected to a position but has not yet been installed. Notably, a president who has been elected but not yet installed would be referred to as a ''president-elect'' (e.g. president-elect of the Unit ...

as the

. On 8 July he was elected Marshal of the Sejm and thus assumed the post of the

. Schetyna served as the interim head of state until Komorowski's inauguration on 6 August 2010. Schetyna ceased being

Sejm Marshal The Marshal of the Sejm , also known as Sejm Marshal, Chairman of the Sejm or Speaker of the Sejm ( pl, Marszałek Sejmu, ) is the speaker (chair) of the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament. The office traces its origins to the 15th c ...

on 8 November 2011;

Ewa Kopacz Ewa Bożena Kopacz (; given name, née Lis; born 3 December 1956) is a Polish politician who has served as a Vice-President of the European Parliament since 2019. She previously was Marshal of the Sejm from 2011 to 2014, the first woman to hold th ...

replaced him and later took his job as the Civic Platform's first deputy leader.

Sejm Committee on Foreign Affairs

Between 2011 and 2014, Schetyna served as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Shortly after the

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

on the status of

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

held on 16 March 2014, he and his counterparts of the

Weimar Triangle The "Weimar Triangle" is, loosely, a grouping of France, Germany, and Poland. The group is intended to promote co-operation between the three countries in crisis zones. It exists mostly in the form of summit meetings between the leaders of these ...

parliaments –

Elisabeth Guigou Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

and

Norbert Röttgen Norbert Alois Röttgen (born 2 July 1965) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). He was Federal Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel f ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

– visited Kyiv to express their countries’ firm support of the territorial integrity and the European integration of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. This was the first time that parliamentarians of the Weimar Triangle had ever made a joint trip to a third country. During Tusk's seven years in power, Schetyna tried several times to challenge him but was sidelined. By 2014, news media reported about increased rivalry and tension between him and Tusk.

Minister of Foreign Affairs

When Tusk stepped down from his position in September 2014 to become the

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 institution comprises the college of heads of state or government of EU member states as well as t ...

, Schetyna announced he would run for leadership of the Civic Platform. This was widely seen as a direct challenge to incoming Prime Minister

, as by tradition the prime minister is also party leader. For domestic political reasons Kopacz therefore decided to replace Foreign Minister

Radosław Sikorski Radosław Tomasz "Radek" Sikorski (; born 23 February 1963) is a Polish politician and journalist who is a Member of the European Parliament. He was Marshal of the Sejm from 2014 to 2015 and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Donald Tusk's cabinet b ...

with Schetyna. Unlike his predecessor in the job, Schetyna was unknown outside Poland at the time. Upon taking office, Kopacz ordered him to redraft Poland's foreign policy urgently and present it to parliament. In February 2015, Schetyna announced that Poland would be the first country to pay damages for participating in the US

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

’s secret rendition program after it was found to have hosted a facility used for illegal rendition and interrogation. In doing so, Poland followed a ruling of the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...

ordering it to pay former detainees

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammed Abdu al-Nashiri (; ar, عبد الرحيم حسين محمد عبده النشري; born January 5, 1965) is a Saudi Arabian citizen alleged to be the mastermind of the bombing of USS ''Cole'' and other maritime ...

and

Abu Zubaydah Abu Zubaydah ( ; , ''Abū Zubaydah''; born March 12, 1971, as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn) is a Saudi Arabian currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use ...

. In September 2015, Schetyna summoned the Russian ambassador to Poland,

Sergey Andreyev Sergey Vasilyevich Andreyev (russian: Сергей Васильевич Андреев; born 16 May 1956 in Luhansk) is a football manager and a former Soviet and Russian player. Honors * Olympic bronze: 1980. * Olympic tournament top scorer: ...

, after the ambassador, in an interview aired by private broadcaster ''

TVN24 TVN24 is a Polish 24-hour commercial news channel, launched on 9 August 2001. Being a part of the TVN Network, TVN24 has been owned since July 2017 by US-based media company Warner Bros. Discovery. It gained broader popularity after the Septem ...

'', said Poland was partly responsible for

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

invading in 1939 because it had repeatedly blocked the formation of a coalition against Berlin in the run-up to the conflict.

Leader of Civic Platform

As Civic Platform chairman, Schetyna and the party’s other lawmakers occupied the main hall in parliament from mid-December 2016 and mid-January 2017 over the ruling PiS party’s plans to limit media access and a vote on the budget which the Civic Platform said was held illegally. He also led the party’s campaign for the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peopl ...

by warning that the ruling eurosceptic PiS party could eventually lead the country out of the EU. Ahead of the 2019 national elections, Schetyna led his party’s move to join forces with two small, liberal groupings and announced

Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska Małgorzata Maria Kidawa-Błońska, née Grabska (born 5 May 1957) is a Polish politician, lawyer, film producer, and sociologist. She was Marshal of the Sejm from 25 June 2015 to 11 November 2015 at the end of the Seventh term's composition of ...

as their candidate for prime minister. In January 2020, Schetyna announced that he won't stand in the 2020 Civic Platform leadership election and endorsed

Tomasz Siemoniak Tomasz Siemoniak (born 2 July 1967) is a Polish politician, Minister of National Defence from 2 August 2011 to 16 November 2015 and Deputy Prime Minister of Poland from 22 September 2014 to 16 November 2015. Early life and education Siemoniak ...

. On 25 January 2020 his successor,

Borys Budka Borys Piotr Budka (born 11 March 1978 in Czeladź) is a Polish politician, member of Sejm of the 7th, 8th and 9th legislature, Minister of Justice in 2015, vice-president of the Civic Platform political party in the 2016–2020 period, leader of ...

, was elected.

References

, - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Schetyna, Grzegorz 1963 births Civic Platform politicians Deputy Prime Ministers of Poland Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Poland Interior ministers of Poland Heads of state of Poland Living people Marshals of the Sejm of the Third Polish Republic Members of the Polish Sejm 2005–2007 Members of the Polish Sejm 1997–2001 Members of the Polish Sejm 2001–2005 Members of the Polish Sejm 2007–2011 Members of the Polish Sejm 2011–2015 Members of the Polish Sejm 2015–2019 Members of the Polish Sejm 2019–2023 People from Opole Polish Roman Catholics