Paweł Kowal

Paweł Kowal
Member of the European Parliament
Assumed office
7 June 2009
Constituency Lesser Poland and Świętokrzyskie
Member of the Sejm
In office
25 September 2005 – 10 June 2009
Constituency 12 – Chrzanów
Personal details
Born 22 July 1975
Rzeszów
Nationality Polish
Political party Poland Together (2013-present)
Other political
affiliations		 Poland Comes First (2010–13)
Law and Justice (2005–2010)
Website www.pawelkowal.pl/

Paweł Kowal (born 22 July 1975 in Rzeszów) is a Polish politician and Member of the European Parliament for Poland Together. He is currently Chairman of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee in the European Parliament.[1]

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.

Biography

Education and early career

Pawel 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.

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 2003-2005, 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

From 2002-2005, 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 November 22, 2010 to become a co-founder of Polska Jest Najważniejsza (PJN) (Poland Comes First). On June 4, 2011, he was elected the President of the party. On September 7 of the same year, he was appointed to the National Security Council.[2] 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.[3]

2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine

On August 14, 2014, regarding to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash he said that soon everyone will remember Putin as not the one who provoked the shooting down of the plane, but as the one who brought help.[4] Four days later he said that the aim of the discussion is to declare ceasefire, and that it should be Russia who should stop support to separatists.[5]

On August 20, 2014, regarding Russian intervention in Ukraine he said that Putin is trying to drag a conflict not declare war. He also stated that the Kremlin's politicians as well as the President of Russia himself are eager to try to create the same empire, as before.[6]

Professional career

Pawel Kowal at the 2012 Warsaw Book Fair

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

Kowal is married and has four children.

Awards and decorations

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "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.
  2. ↑ http://en.bbn.gov.pl/en/national-security-coun/about-the-national-sec/99,The-National-Security-Council.html
  3. ↑ "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.
  4. ↑ "Kowal: Niedługo wszyscy będą myśleć, że to Putin niósł pomoc" [Kowal: Soon everyone will think that Putin was prividing aid]. Wprost. August 14, 2014. Archived from the original on August 23, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  5. ↑ "Kowal o spotkaniu w Berlinie: Jak w XIX w., negocjacje nad głowami innych" [Kowal regarding meeting in Berlin: It is like in the nineteenth century., Negotiations over the heads of others]. Wprost. August 18, 2014. Archived from the original on August 23, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.
  6. ↑ Zuzanna Wierus (August 18, 2014). "Paweł Kowal: Celem Putina nie jest wojna, tylko przeciąganie konfliktu na Ukrainie" [Paweł Kowal: Putin's aim is not war, just drag conflict in Ukraine]. Archived from the original on April 20, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.

Publications

Academic articles

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