Paweł Robert Kowal (born 22 July 1975 in Rzeszów) is a Polish politician and former Member of the European Parliament. During his time in the EP, he served as the Chairman of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in the European Parliament.[1]
Paweł Kowal | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the Sejm | |
| Assumed office 13 October 2019 | |
| Constituency | 13 – Kraków |
| Member of the Sejm | |
| In office 25 September 2005 – 10 June 2009 | |
| Constituency | 12 – Chrzanów |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| In office 7 June 2009 – 25 May 2014 | |
| Constituency | Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 22 July 1975 (age 49) Rzeszów |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Political party | Civic Coalition (2019-) |
| Other political affiliations | Law and Justice (2005–2010) |
| Website | www.pawelkowal.pl/ |
Kowal was elected to the Sejm in the 2005 election for Law and Justice, from the 12 – Chrzanów district. He won re-election in 2007.
In 2009, he ran for the European Parliament in the Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie constituency, including Chrzanów. He came second amongst PiS candidates, behind Zbigniew Ziobro, taking the second Law and Justice seat won. He resigned his seat in the Sejm three days later.
During the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election Kowal was the head of the delegation of the European Parliament's observers.[1] He joined Poland Comes First when that party split from Law and Justice in 2010. In December 2013, he joined the new centre-right Poland Together party formed by Jarosław Gowin, the former minister of justice, formerly of Civic Platform.
In 2019 he was re-elected to the Sejm from Civic Coalition.[2] He became deputy chairman of Foreign Affairs Committee.[3]
As a member of the Civic coalition, he is seen as one of the coalition's most conservative members.
Biography
editEducation and early career
editPawel Robert Kowal graduated from Fr. Stanisław Konarski High School in Rzeszow. Kowal graduated from the Faculty of History at the Jagiellonian University in 1999. He studied at Collegium Invisibile in Warsaw between 1996 and 1998 under Professor Krystyna Kersten. While there, he participated in study abroad programs in Russia in Yakutia, Buryatia, and Khakassia. In 1999, he became an assistant at the Institute of Political Studies at the Polish Academy of Sciences. There Kowal defended his doctoral thesis Politics of General Wojciech Jaruzelski's administration 1986-1989. Attempts at political system reform in January 2011.
He was habilitated on 22 February 2019 at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences (ISP PAN) in the field of social sciences, the same year he took up the position of professor at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.[4] He also became a lecturer at the University of Warsaw's Eastern European Studies Department, and took the position of head of the Postgraduate Eastern Studies there. In his scholarly work, he has taken a special interest in the issues of Poland's and the EU's eastern policy and contemporary history.
Between 1998 and 2000, Kowal worked in, amongst others, the office of the Prime Minister and the office of the head of the Polish Department of Foreign Affairs. In 2000-2001 he served as the Director of the Department of International Relations and European Integration in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Between 2001 and 2003, he worked as an expert on Eastern foreign policy in the Center for International Relations. From 2003 to 2005, he was the director of the Mazovian Regional Center of Culture and the Arts. In 2003, Kowal co-founded the Warsaw Uprising Museum, and has worked as an expert for the Museum ever since. In 2005, he led the Press Office of the Mayor of Warsaw. He continues to contribute articles on international relations.
Political career
editFrom 2002 to 2005, Kowal was the chairman of the Ochota district council in Warsaw. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, Kowal was elected to the Sejm from the okreg (electoral district) of Chrzanow as a member of Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) (Law and Justice), where he served as chairman of the Committee on Culture and Media and as vice-president of PiS in the Sejm. Between 20 July 2006 and 22 November 2007, Kowal served as Secretary of State in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in President Jaroslaw Kaczynski's cabinet. Pawel Kowal was re-elected in the 2007 Sejm elections, and served again as vice-president of PiS in the Sejm, as well as vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Pawel Kowal was elected in 2009 to European Parliament from the Kraków electoral district. Once in Parliament, Mr. Kowal joined the Group of European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), serving as chairman of the parliamentary delegation to Ukraine.
Pawel Kowal left Law and Justice on 22 November 2010 to become a co-founder of Polska Jest Najważniejsza (PJN) (Poland Comes First). On 4 June 2011 he was elected the President of the party. On September 7 of the same year, he was appointed to the National Security Council.[5] In December 2013 members of PJN decided to join the newly formed Poland Together party, where Paweł Kowal became the head of the party's National Committee.[6] In October 2019, he successfully ran in the parliamentary elections with the Civic Coalition from the Cracow region.
Professional career
edit
Kowal was the chairman of the Rzeszow Youth Council. Between 1996 and 1998, he served as the president of the Jagiellonian club while working in the Miroslaw Dzielski Center in Kraków. From 1997 to 2005 he worked in the Center for Political Thought, where he managed the Polish State program for Poles in the East. Kowal is a member of Association "Polish Community," a Polish Senate-sponsored organization dedicated to building ties between Poland and Polonia, and is also an associate member of the World Association of the Home Army. Kowal has worked with the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański program of the College of Eastern Europe (Kolegium Europy Wschodniej) in Wroclaw since 2007. He has also sat on the board of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Polish think tank. In 2008, he became an honorary member of the Volunteer Fire Department in Chocznia, Poland.
Private life
editKowal is married and has four children.
Awards and decorations
edit- Officer of the Order of Polonia Restituta – 2014[7]
- Prof. T. Strzembosz Award – 2013
- Order of Christ the Saviour (Ukraine) – 2013
- Order of Merit (Portugal), Grand Cross – 2008[8]
- Order of Merit, Third Class (Ukraine) – 2007[9] (awarded in 2009)
- Silver Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (Poland) – 2005[10]
- Silver Guardian Medal of the Places of National Remembrance (Poland) – 2005
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Kowal to head delegation of European Parliament's observers for elections". Kyiv Post. Interfax-Ukraine. December 16, 2009. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2009.
- ^ "Wybory do Sejmu i Senatu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 2019 R".
- ^ "Komisja Spraw Zagranicznych (SZA) - Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej".
- ^ "Zakończone postępowania awansowe".
- ^ "The National Security Council - About the National Security Council - National Security Bureau". Archived from the original on 2013-11-03. Retrieved 2013-08-22.
- ^ "Pawel Kowal and Marek Migalski joined Polska Razem Jarosława Gowina". Warsaw. December 7, 2013. Archived from the original on April 20, 2014. Retrieved April 19, 2014.
- ^ "Podziękowanie za zasługi w umacnianiu wolności / Ordery i odznaczenia / Aktualności / Archiwum Bronisława Komorowskiego / Oficjalna strona Prezydenta Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej". www.prezydent.pl (in Polish). 2014-11-11. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
- ^ "Diário da República, 2.ª série — N.º 40 — 26 de Fevereiro de 2009" (PDF). dre.pt (in Portuguese). 2009. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
- ^ "УКАЗ ПРЕЗИДЕНТА УКРАЇНИ № 739/2007 - Офіційне представництво Президента України". 2014-07-11. Archived from the original on 2014-07-11. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
- ^ "Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego". www.1944.pl. Retrieved 2019-10-27.
External links
edit- Paweł Kowal - parliamentary page - includes declarations of interest, voting record, and transcripts of speeches. (not online any more, link to page included in waybackmachine archive).
- Paweł Kowal - European Parliament page
- Member profile for Sixth Session of the Sejm
- ECR information page[permanent dead link]
- Personal website
- Twitter account
Publications
edit- "Only For People with Strong Nerves" (New Eastern Europe)
- "Lutsenko's Release Was A Triumph For All, Except Ukraine" (The Ukrainian Week)
- "Treat Lukashenko With Respect" (Belarus Digest) Archived 2013-08-18 at the Wayback Machine
- "Doves vs. Hawks: A post-election draw" (New Eastern Europe)
Academic articles
edit- Państwo polskie wobec Polaków na Wschodzie (współautor), Kraków 2000
- Włodzimierz Bączkowski. O wschodnich problemach Polski. Wybór pism (współautor), Kraków 2000, Wrocław 2005
- Nie jesteśmy ukrainofilami (współautor), Wrocław 2002, 2008
- „Wymiar wschodni” UE – szansa czy idée fixe polskiej polityki? (redaktor, współautor), Warszawa 2002
- Krajobrazy z Mistralami w tle, Kraków 2011
- Koniec systemu władzy. Polityka ekipy gen. Wojciecha Jaruzelskiego w latach 1986–1989, Warszawa 2012
- Między Majdanem a Smoleńskiem. Rozmawiają Piotr Legutko i Dobrosław Rodziewicz, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2012
