Jerzy Buzek

Jerzy Buzek

Jerzy Karol Buzek [ˈjɛʒɨ 'karɔl ˈbuzɛk] ^{? / i} (born July 3, 1940 in Smilowitz , Teschen district ) is a Polish politician of the liberal-conservative spectrum (today PO ). He was Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001 and President of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2012 . As Prime Minister he achieved NATO accession and negotiated the conditions for his country's accession to the EU. He chaired the European Parliament during the euro crisis and after the expansion of competencies in the Lisbon Treaty . He is considered an expert in energy and foreign policy.

Education and academic career

Buzek passed the Abitur in 1957 at the Juliusz Słowacki -Gymnasium in Chorzów and then studied at the Silesian Technical University ( Polish Politechnika Śląska ) in Gliwice , where he graduated in 1963 as an engineer for chemistry. He then worked as a research assistant at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gliwice, where he received his doctorate in chemistry in 1969. From then on he taught as a lecturer in Gliwice and at the Technical University of Opole , where he was appointed professor in 1997. Buzek was Vice-Rector of the Polonia Academy in Częstochowa from 2002 to 2004 .

Buzek is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and a representative of Poland in the International Energy Agency .

Political career

From September 1980 on, Buzek was involved in the Solidarność trade union , and in 1981 as chairman of the first Solidarność congress. During the state of war until 1983 under General Wojciech Jaruzelski he escaped arrest and worked underground in leading positions of Solidarność, among other things as editor of the illegally printed newspaper Biuletin S , until he withdrew into scientific work in 1987 because of a serious illness of his daughter. to which he devoted himself even after the system upheaval in 1989 .

Prime Minister of Poland (1997-2001)

Buzek was Polish Prime Minister from 1997 to 2001. He initially led a coalition of the moderately conservative Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność ( AWS ) and the liberal Unia Wolności ( UW ). After Unia Wolności left the government in 2000, he headed an AWS minority government. From January 1999 to October 2001 he was also chairman of the AWS, which came to power as a gathering movement of around 50 individual groups and four different ideological mainstreams and which was characterized by disagreement and unreliability from the beginning of the government. The strong man in the government was initially not the largely unknown Buzek, who operated without a political power base, but the party and parliamentary group leader of the AWS, Marian Krzaklewski . Buzek succeeded with his moderation, however, against the expectations of most observers, to assemble a parliamentary majority behind his government over the entire legislative period.

Buzek's policy was aimed at bringing Poland to the European Union as quickly as possible; his government had considerable difficulties in enforcing the necessary domestic measures. The loss of popularity led to conflicts within the ruling party AWS, which suffered a severe election defeat in 2001 . Jerzy Buzek was replaced by Leszek Miller ( SLD ) after the election and retired from active politics for a few years.

During his tenure, Poland was restructured into 16 new voivodeships , Poland's accession to NATO was achieved and negotiations for EU accession were held. In addition, far-reaching changes in the social system (pension, health, education) and the economy (mining) were carried out; In retrospect, Buzek described his policy as a tough but successful reform program: “If you are politically courageous, you can solve unbelievably large crises yourself.” As Prime Minister, he advocated the establishment of an international training center for human rights issues in Oświęcim .

Member of the European Parliament (since 2004)

In the discussion "Where is Europe going?" With Michael Spindelegger (2012)

Jerzy Buzek is now a member of the liberal-conservative Platforma Obywatelska (PO, Citizens' Platform ) and was elected as a member of the European Parliament in the 2004 European elections . As a Member of the Civic Platform is Buzek member of the group EPP-ED and is chairman of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy . At the European elections in 2009 and 2014 he was re-elected to the European Parliament. Buzek is considered a very active member of parliament and has received several awards for it from various media; Among other things, he supported the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. He speaks regularly on foreign and energy policy issues.

Buzek is one of the 89 people from the European Union against whom Russia imposed an entry ban in May 2015 .

President of the European Parliament (2009-2012)

"The Three Presidents" (2011): Buzek (left) with the President of the EU Commission José Manuel Barroso (center) and the President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy (right)

On July 14, 2009 Buzek was elected President of the European Parliament as the first Eastern European, succeeding the German Christian Democrat Hans-Gert Pöttering . Due to a compromise with the Social Democratic Party of Europe , Buzek served as President for the first half of the European Parliament's five-year term, which corresponds to a regular term of office for managerial tasks in the European Parliament of two and a half years. Buzek announced at the beginning that human rights would be a priority of his term in office.

Buzek sought to strengthen parliament's power and, with negotiating skills, managed to expand its role in the euro crisis that marked his term in office , in order to "strengthen the EU's democratic responsibility and accountability". During the Arab Spring 2011, Buzek made himself heard internationally with his commitment to the demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Egypt and the Libyan rebels .

On October 14, 2011, Buzek opened the Parlamentarium after four years of planning and construction . It is the largest parliamentary visitor center in Europe.

On January 17, 2012, the German Social Democrat Martin Schulz was elected Buzek's successor as President of Parliament. Buzek's personally withdrawn, statesmanship found approval in the judgment of most European journalists, while Martin Schulz described him as "Grüßaugust" and Daniel Cohn-Bendit as "decent, a nice person, but nothing more".

Family and private

Buzek is an Evangelical Lutheran denomination . He was after Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski (1936-1939) the second Protestant head of government in Poland. Buzek is a member of the board of trustees of the ProChrist evangelical association , which organizes mass evangelizations . He is married to chemistry professor Ludgarda Buzek and father of actress Agata Buzek .

Buzek's ancestors were also involved in politics; his great uncle Józef Buzek was a national democratic member of the Austrian Imperial Council from 1907 to 1918 and then a Polish senator (1922–1927).

Honors

In 1998, Buzek received the Grand Decoration of Honor in Gold on ribbon for services to the Republic of Austria . The Polish political magazine Wprost named him Man of the Year 2009 ( Polish: Człowiek Roku 2009 ) for his work as President of the European Parliament. In 2013 Buzek received the Martin Luther Medal of the Council of the EKD , awarded in the Heiliggeistkirche Heidelberg on October 31, 2013 by the Chairman of the Council of the EKD Nikolaus Schneider . For his services to European unification and German-Polish reconciliation, Buzek received the Federal Cross of Merit with a star and shoulder ribbon in May 2015 .

Buzek received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Seoul , Dortmund , Isparta and Opole .

Web links

Commons : Jerzy Buzek  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jerzy Buzek's website (Polish, English, French)
• Entry on Jerzy Buzek in the European Parliament 's database of deputies
• Literature by and about Jerzy Buzek in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Jerzy Buzek - President of the European Parliament. In: Europarl.Europa.eu .
2. ↑ Klaus Ziemer , Claudia-Yvette Matthes: The political system of Poland. In: Wolfgang Ismayr (Ed.): The political systems of Eastern Europe. Leske & Budrich, Opladen 2002, ISBN 978-3-322-96397-0 , pp. 185-237, here p. 217 .
3. ^ Frances Millard: Politics and Society in Poland (= Routledge Studies of Societies in Transition. ). Routledge, London 2003, ISBN 0-203-44467-1 , pp. 27-30 .
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Florian Eder: EU Parliament President Buzek: "I see some new divisions in Europe". In: Die Welt , January 16, 2012.
5. ↑ Interview with Jerzy Buzek on the Energy Union. ( Memento of the original from January 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Europarl.de , February 26, 2015. 
6. ↑ Andreas Borcholte: Entry bans: Russia accuses EU politicians of showing behavior. In: Spiegel Online . May 31, 2015, accessed June 1, 2015 .  ; RUS: Russian Visa Blocking List. (PDF 23 KB) In: yle.fi. May 26, 2015, accessed June 1, 2015 . 
7. ↑ Nikolas Busse : President of the EU Parliament. Pole Buzek elected by a large majority. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 14, 2009.
8. ↑ Carolyn Henson: EU Parliament Elects Ex-Polish PM Buzek As President , The Wall Street Journal . July 14, 2009. 
9. ↑ ^{a b} Brigitte Jaeger-Dabek: Martin Schulz successor to Jerzy Buzek as President of the EU Parliament. In: Das-Polen-Magazin.de , February 8, 2012.
10. ↑ Nikolas Busse : New President of the European Parliament. Schulz: Belief in the European project is threatened. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 17, 2012.
11. ↑ Reinhold Vetter : Bronisław Geremek: The strategist of the Polish revolution. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-8305-3251-4 , p. 353 .
12. ↑ Buzek został przewodniczącym Parlamentu Europejskiego. In: Gazeta Wyborcza , July 14, 2009, accessed July 15, 2009 (Polish).
13. ↑ ProChrist Board of Trustees ( Memento of the original from September 7, 2010 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
14. ↑ Teresa Stochel-Nabielska: The Polish party spectrum in Galicia before 1914. Dissertation (PDF, 2.5 MB) , 2008, accessed on July 8 2011th
15. ↑ Jerzy Buzek: "We are a single parliamentary body". The President of the European Parliament in the EU Main Committee. In: OTS.at , July 8, 2011, accessed on July 8, 2011
16. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB).
17. ↑ Jerzy Buzek - Człowiek Roku 2009. In: Wprost , January 19, 2010.
18. ↑ Federal Cross of Merit for Prof. Jerzy Buzek. ( Memento from October 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) On the website: German representations in Poland , May 11, 2015.
19. ↑ Jerzy Buzek. In: EPPGroup.eu .