Jerzy Buzek
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Jerzy Buzek



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28th President of the European Parliament
13th of the Elected Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office
14 July 2009
Preceded by Hans-Gert Pöttering

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Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland
9th Prime Minister of the Third Republic
In office
October 31, 1997 – October 19, 2001
President Aleksander Kwaśniewski
Vice PM Longin Komołowski, Leszek Balcerowicz, Janusz Tomaszewski, Janusz Steinhoff
Preceded by Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz
Succeeded by Leszek Miller

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Born July 3, 1940 (1940-07-03) (age 69)
Smilovice, Zaolzie region, now Czech Republic
Political party Ruch Społeczny (part of Solidarity Electoral Action),
Civic Platform
Profession Engineer
Religion Lutheran
Professor Jerzy Buzek [ˈjɛʐɨ ˈbuzɛk] ( listen) (born 3 July 1940 in Smilovice, Silesia region, now in the Czech Republic[1]) is a Polish engineer, academic lecturer and politician, Prime Minister of Poland from 1997 to 2001 and a member of the European Parliament since 13 June 2004. In July 2009 he was elected the president of the European Parliament as the successor to Hans-Gert Poettering.[2]

Contents [hide]
1 Professional career
2 Political career
2.1 Jerzy Buzek's government
2.2 Polish MEP with record number of votes
2.3 President of the European Parliament
3 Timeline of career
3.1 Education
3.2 Career
4 Notes
5 External links



[Professional career
In 1963 Jerzy Buzek graduated from the Mechanics-and-Energy Division of the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice specializing in chemical engineering. He became a scientist in the Chemical Engineering Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gliwice. Since 1997 he has been a professor of technical science. He is also an honorary doctor of the universities in Seoul and Dortmund.

From 1997 to 2001 he was Prime Minister of Poland (see below). In 1998 he became a laureate of the Grzegorz Palka Award, was nominated the European of the Year by the European Union Business Chambers Forum and Man of the Year of a Polish political weekly Wprost.

After losing the parliamentary elections in 2001, he stepped back from Polish political life (although he was elected a member of the European Parliament in 2004) and focused more on his scientific work, becoming the prorector of Akademia Polonijna in Częstochowa and professor in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the Opole University of Technology in Opole.


Political career
Jerzy Buzek comes from the well-known Buzek family, present in Polish politics since the 20 years of free Poland between the World Wars (World War I and World War II). His family comes from the Polish community in Zaolzie, a region of Cieszyn Silesia which is now part of the Czech Republic. He is a Protestant.

In the 1980s Jerzy Buzek was an activist of the democratic anti-communist movements, including the legal (1980–1981 and since 1989) and underground (1981–1989) Solidarity trade union and political movement in the communist Poland. He was an active organizer of the trade union's regional and national underground authorities. He was also the chairman of the four national general meetings (1st, 4th, 5th and 6th) when Solidarity was allowed to act legally.

Jerzy Buzek was a member of the experts team of Solidarity Electoral Action (Akcja Wyborcza Solidarność, AWS) and co-author of AWS's economic programme. In the 1997 elections he became a member of the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish Parliament, and soon was appointed the prime minister of Poland (for this time he has suspended his Solidarity trade union membership). In 1999 he became the chairman of the AWS Social Movement (Ruch Społeczny AWS) and in 2001 the chairman of the whole Solidarity Electoral Action coalition.


Jerzy Buzek's government
In the years 1997–2001 he was the prime minister of Poland, first of the right-centrist AWS–UW coalition government until 2001, and then of the rightist AWS minority government. His cabinet major achievements are 4 significant political and economic reforms: the new local government and administration division of Poland, reform of the pension schemes system, reform of the educational system and reform of the medical services system.[3]


Polish MEP with record number of votes
On 13 June 2004 Jerzy Buzek was elected Member of European Parliament from Silesian Voivodeship constituency, without printing of any posters, basing his election only on popularity of his name and on direct contact with the voters. He received the record number of votes in Poland: 173,389 (22.14% of the total votes in this region).

His party is the Platforma Obywatelska which joined the European People's Party and sits now on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.

Buzek is a substitute for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, a member of the Delegation to the EU–Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee and a substitute for the Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America.

On 7 June 2009 Buzek was reelected Member of European Parliament from Silesian Voivodeship constituency. Just as in the previous election, Buzek received the record number of votes in Poland: 393, 117 (over 42% of the total votes in the constituency).

President of the European Parliament
On 14 July 2009 Jerzy Buzek was elected President of the European Parliament with 555 votes, becoming the first person from the former Eastern Bloc to gain the position.[2] He has pledged to make human rights a priority during his administration, which will last two and a half years until, due to a political deal, Social Democrat MEP Martin Schulz will take over.[2][4] The start to his campaign to become President was marked by some controversy, after he said in a press conference that English, French, and Polish are "the most important languages" of the EU, though he later contended that he meant they are "among the best-known" languages.[5]


Timeline of career

Education
from 1997 to 2001: Professor of technical sciences, actively engaged in public work, Prime Minister of Poland
Honorary doctorates of the Universities of Dortmund, Seoul, Süleyman Demirel University (Isparta)
University lecturer of long standing at Opole, Gliwice and Częstochowa, researcher at the Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gliwice
1972: Research stay at the University of Cambridge

[edit] Career
1992–1997: Representative of Poland at the International Energy Agency – Programme of Greenhouse Gas Effect
1996: Organiser and chairman of an international network of 19 institutions working on energy and environmental protection
Author of some 200 research papers, over a dozen rationalisations and three patents in the fields of environmental protection, power and process engineering
1981: Member of the independent, self-governing trade union 'NSZZ Solidarność', Chairman of the I National Congress of Delegates of 'Solidarność' in
1981: Active in the Solidarność underground structure after
1997: Elected as a Member of the Polish Parliament in
As Prime Minister, in 1999, took Poland into NATO and prepared the country for integration into the European Union (including decentralisation of the State – consolidation of the role of local self-government)
In 1998, began accession negotiations
1999: Represented the Social Movement of Solidarity Electoral Action (AWS) in the PPE–DE
1999: Established the annual Pro Publico Bono prize for the best national civic initiatives
Set up the Family Foundation together with his wife (1998), having gained greater understanding of the meaning of help for the needy after their experiences with the battle for the life of their own child
See also: European Parliament election, 2004 (Poland)


[edit] Notes
^ Smilovice (Śmiłowice) village lies in the Zaolzie region. This territory was from 1920 a part of Czechoslovakia. In 1938 it was annexed by Poland and after the 1939 German invasion of Poland it was occupied by Nazi Germany. After World War II it became again a part of Czechoslovakia. Buzek hails from the Polish minority in Zaolzie.
^ a b c "Euro parliament elects new leader". BBC News. 2009-07-14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8148729.stm. Retrieved on 2009-07-14.
^ Transition by Mario I. Bléjer, Marko Škreb
^ Henson, Carolyn (2009-07-14). "UPDATE: EU Parliament Elects Ex-Polish PM Buzek As President * Article". Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090714-703860.html. Retrieved on 2009-07-14.
^ Banks, Martin (2009-07-07). "Buzek overcomes gaffe and accepts EU parliament president nomination". theParliament.com. http://www.theparliament.com/no_cache/latestnews/news-article/newsarticle/buzek-overcomes-gaffe-and-accepts-eu-parliament-president-nomination/. Retrieved on 2009-07-14.