Radosław Sikorski

Radosław Sikorski (2019)

Radosław Tomasz Sikorski ( [radɔswaf ɕikɔrskʲi] listen ^{? / I} * 23 February 1963 in Bydgoszcz , Poland ), often referred to by the shorthand Radek Sikorski , a Polish journalist and politician of the liberal-conservative Civic Platform (PO). From October 2005 to February 2007 he was independent defense minister and from November 2007 to September 2014 he was foreign minister of the Polish government . Between September 24, 2014 and June 23, 2015 he held the office of Sejm Marshal . In 2019 he was elected to the European Parliament .

Family, education and work

Sikorski attended high school in his hometown and headed an in-school strike committee during Solidarność's time. After graduating from high school, he left the People's Republic of Poland in 1981 and studied a. a. at Leszek Kolakowski Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Pembroke College of Oxford University . During his studies he was a member of the exclusive Bullingdon Club .

From 1986 to 1989 Sikorski worked as a foreign correspondent for the Spectator and the Observer in Afghanistan , Angola and Yugoslavia . In 1987 he received the World Press Photo Award for one of his photographs . From 1990 to 1991 he was Poland correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph and Poland advisor to the publisher Rupert Murdoch .

Sikorski is married to the American historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum and has two children with her.

Political career

In 1992 Sikorski became Deputy Minister of Defense in Jan Olszewski's cabinet . From 1998 to 2001 he was Deputy Foreign Minister in Jerzy Buzek's government . From 2002 he worked as director of the New Atlantic Initiative in the influential American Enterprise Institute in Washington . In the parliamentary elections in Poland in 2005 he was elected to the Senate in the constituency of Bydgoszcz . On October 31, 2005 he was proposed by Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz as Minister of Defense. He held this office, also in the following Kaczyński cabinet , between December 2005 and February 2007.

Since autumn 2007 Sikorski has been a member of the Platforma Obywatelska (PO) party, which became the strongest force in the Sejm in the 2007 parliamentary elections . On November 10, 2007, Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced Sikorski's appointment as Foreign Minister in the Tusk I Cabinet . He also held this office in Tusk 's second cabinet . Sikorski ran in his party to run for the 2010 presidential election . However, he was defeated by his opponent Bronisław Komorowski in the internal party ballot on March 27, 2010 .

When Donald Tusk resigned from the office of Prime Minister on September 22, 2014, as he had been elected President of the European Council , he was replaced by the previous Speaker of Parliament, Ewa Kopacz . Sikorski took over her previous position of Sejm Marshal on September 24, 2014. The previous chairman of the parliamentary committee for foreign policy, Grzegorz Schetyna , was appointed Sikorski's successor in the office of foreign minister. On June 10, 2015, Sikorski announced that he would resign because of the affair surrounding the publication of secretly taped conversations (see #Controversies ), which took place on June 23, 2015. He was temporarily replaced by his oldest deputy, the SLD politician Jerzy Wenderlich . Sikorski's political future is uncertain.

Political positions

Sikorski with Secretary of State John Kerry , 2013

Sikorski is considered pro-European and particularly advocates an active role for Germany in European politics. So he feared "German power [...] today less than German inaction".

Sikorski supported the stationing of NATO troops in Poland and other countries in Central Eastern Europe as well as the positioning of US missile defense systems in his country. At the same time, he spoke out in favor of a dialogue with the Russian Federation , but also called for stricter sanctions against the country if necessary , particularly in light of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine .

In February 2014, during the unrest in Ukraine , Sikorski represented the European Union with his counterparts Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius in negotiations between the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and representatives of the government opponents. He warned the opposition leaders who were present that if they did not support this deal, the Ukrainian government would declare a state of emergency and they would all die. On February 21, 2014, Yanukovych and three representatives of the government opponents signed the agreement on the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine . Sikorski, Fabius and Steinmeier signed as witnesses.

Based on his public statements, Sikorski has often been viewed as pro-American. In the course of the Polish wiretapping affair in 2014 , secret recordings of a conversation in which he described the alliance with the USA as "worthless" were made public. The alliance is even “harmful” “because it gives Poland a false sense of security.” He went on to describe it as “complete bullshit. We come into conflict with Germany and Russia and think that everything is great just because we gave the Americans a blow job. "

As early as 2007, Die Zeit ruled that Sikorski was “not a transatlantic par excellence”. As Polish Foreign Minister he will not necessarily maintain his unconditional focus on the USA: “Sikorski is a patriot - and Polish patriots are very keen to have close relations with the USA. But he also returned to Poland so that his sons would not be completely 'Americanized'. It is Polish that counts for Sikorski, also in politics, in diplomatic relations, in negotiations or contracts. "

Controversy

The publication of recordings of privately held conversations by Sikorski in June 2014 caused an international stir. In the intercepted conversations, he not only criticized Poland's “worthless” relations with the United States, but also Prime Minister Tusk's policy as “flawed” and rejected British Prime Minister David Cameron's EU positions : “He fucked up the EU fiscal pact. He just doesn't understand anything! ”About Poland he said:“ The problem in Poland is that we have too shallow pride and too little self-assessment. ... Such a negativity. "

Sikorski caused a political uproar in mid-October 2014 when he told the American policy website Politico that in March 2008 Putin had proposed to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Moscow that the "artificial" Ukraine should be broken up militarily and divided between Russia and Poland . Putin had planned for Poland to incorporate the western Ukrainian city of Lemberg , which had belonged to Poland in the interwar period. Sikorski withdrew his sensational statement below. First he declared them unauthorized and "over-interpreted"; afterwards he admitted that the meeting between Putin and Tusk did not take place, his memory had "failed".

Fonts

• with Mariusz Brymora and James Pula: 400 years of Polish immigrants in America 1608–2008. Ex Libris, Warsaw 2008, ISBN 978-83-899-1347-0 .
• The Polish house. An intimate history of Poland. Phoenix, London 1997, ISBN 0-7538-0464-6 .
  • The Polish house. The history of my country. Translation of Anne Middelhoek. 2nd Edition. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2014 (1999), ISBN 978-3-86393-053-0 ( review ).
• Full circle. A homecoming to free Poland. Simon & Schuster, New York 1997, ISBN 0-684-81102-2 .
• Dust of the saints. A journey to Herat in time of war. Chatto & Windus, London 1989, ISBN 0-7011-3436-4 .
• Moscow's Afghan was. Soviet motives and western interests. Institute for European Defense & Strategic Studies, London 1987, ISBN 0-907967-85-X .

Web links

Commons : Radosław Sikorski  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Personal website (Polish).
• Jan Opielka: The falcon. In: Friday , June 23, 2014.
• Entry on Radosław Sikorski in the Members' database of the European Parliament

Footnotes

1. ↑ The Sikorski set (June 26, 2014) , standard.co.uk, accessed June 28, 2015 (English)
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Alice Bota : Poland: The adventurer. Zeit Online, March 19, 2009, accessed June 19, 2011 . 
3. ↑ 1987, Radek Sikorski, 1st prize, Spot News. Retrieved June 19, 2011 . 
4. ^ Jan Puhl: Presidential election in Poland: lucky fairy for the Kaczynski opponent. In: Spiegel Online , March 28, 2010.
5. ↑ Michael E. Miller: Secret recordings, posh restaurants and intrigue finally catch up to Polish government. In: The Washington Post , June 11, 2015.
6. ^ AB, PAP: Radosław Sikorski zrezygnował z funkcji marszałka Sejmu. Jeszcze dziś poznamy jego następcę? ( Memento from June 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: gazeta.pl , June 23, 2015.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Jan Opielka: The falcon. In: Friday , June 23, 2014.
8. ↑ polen-heute.de
9. ↑ "If you don't support this you'll have martial law, you'll have the army. You will all be dead. ” Itv.com
10. ↑ Lars Leschewitz February 22, 2014: Compromise in Kiev - Sikorski relieved
11. ^ Christoph Sydow (with material from AFP and DPA): wiretapping affair in Warsaw. In: Spiegel Online , June 23, 2014.
12. ^ Jan Opielka: wiretapping affair in Poland: Sikorski comes under pressure in Poland. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , June 23, 2014; Dietrich Alexander, Julia Szyndzielorz: Poland's Prime Minister Tusk asks the vote of confidence. Welt.de June 25, 2014.
13. ↑ In the original: “Problem w Polsce jest, że mamy bardzo płytką dumę i niską samoocenę. … Taka murzyńskość. ” Rozmowa Sikorski-Rostowski. "Można za * ć PiS komisją specjalną ws Macierewicza". In: Wprost .pl , June 22, 2014; Dietrich Alexander, Julia Szyndzielorz: Poland's Prime Minister Tusk asks the vote of confidence. In: Die Welt , June 25, 2014.
14. ↑ Ben Judah: Putin's Coup. How the Russian leader used the Ukraine crisis to consolidate his dictatorship. In: Politico , October 19, 2014.
15. ↑ Jörg Winterbauer: Putin is said to have offered Poland to Ukraine. In: Die Welt , October 22, 2014; Renata Grochal, Agata Kondzińska: Awantura o Sikorskiego po stwierdzeniu, że Putin proponował Polsce rozbiór Ukrainy. In: Gazeta Wyborcza , October 22, 2014.