Poland this week turned the page on eight years of power of the nationalists of the Law and Justice party. Pro-European Donald Tusk was sworn in as the new Prime Minister. The former President of the European Council will be keen to improve relations with Brussels and kyiv. A task that he will share with his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radoslaw Sikorski, a convinced Atlanticist and European.
“ I do not need to introduce Mr. Radoslaw Sikorski. I will not repeat his CV for you », joked Donald Tusk during his general policy speech in front of Parliament, provoking smiles from the room and some applause. The two men know each other well. Radosław Sikorski, 60, had already served in the same ministry under the government of Donald Tusk between 2007 and 2014. “ He brings first of all experience, but also contacts from international networks because he is very well integrated into an international establishment, with very close contacts with the United States where he lived and worked. », recalls Valentin Behr, research fellow at the CNRS, attached to the European Center for Sociology and Political Science, who points out that Radoslaw Sikroski married the American journalist and writer Anne Appelbaum in 1992. “ He is the most experienced member of the new team “, notes Lukas Macek, head of the Greater Europe center dedicated to enlargement at the Jacques Delors Institute, ” undoubtedly a heavyweight in Polish politics and not a newcomer who should introduce himself and hope that the door is opened for him “.
Educated at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, where he had obtained political refugee status while Poland was under martial law and several of his friends had been imprisoned, he returned to the country in 1989 , after the victory of Solidarność in the elections and the fall of communism. At the time, he was a war correspondent for British media in Afghanistan and Angola.
Close to the neo-conservatives
Atlanticist, Radoslaw Sikorski is very close to the American neoconservatives. “ He was associated with the American Enterprise Institute, their think tank, in Washington and at the European Parliament, where he was elected deputy in 2019. He chaired the European delegation which organizes the transatlantic dialogue with the American Congress », recalls Valentin Behr. Alongside his political activities, he was also a lecturer at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University and an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“ He is a bit of an intermittent player in Polish political life, who has lived abroad for a long time, who returns there, who travels a lot », notes Valentin Behr. A man of the establishment with its flaws. In June 2014, a weekly published several conversations in private rooms of Warsaw restaurants. In particular, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Radoslaw Sikorski, was heard criticizing the United States in very direct and even vulgar language. “ The alliance with the United States is worthless. This is complete bullshit ! It is even harmful because it creates a false sense of security “, he says, adding: “ We could go to war with Germany and Russia and pretend that everything was fine because we gave the Americans a blow job. ! “. At the time, this affair dampened all of Radoslaw Sikorski’s hopes of taking over from Anders Fogh Rasmussen at NATO or Catherine Ashton at European diplomacy.
Members of the Law and Justice party, now in opposition, could also be tempted to revive this nearly decade-old affair. “ There is a personal dimension, these people have been around each other for a long time and have a lot to reproach each other for. », says Lukas Macek. Minister of Defense in the government of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Radosław Sikorski slammed the door in 2007. Since then, relations between the two men have been execrable.
Eastern Front
With the head of Swedish diplomacy Carl Bildt, Radoslaw Sikorski was one of the main initiators of the Eastern Partnership, launched by the European Union vis-à-vis the former Soviet Socialist Republics such as Ukraine, Georgia or the Moldova. Supporting the authorities who came to power in Kiev after the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, he participated as Minister of Foreign Affairs, alongside his French and German counterparts, in negotiations between the government and the opposition during the Maidan revolution.
Engaged in aiding Ukraine at war, he moved near the Eastern Front to take vehicles to Ukrainian army units. “ Radoslaw Sikorski is a man who understands Eastern politics very well. I think Ukraine will get a new boost thanks to Polish support », Says former diplomat Pavel Latushka, a Belarusian opposition figure in exile in Warsaw, who met him for the first time in 2007 when he was Belarusian ambassador to Poland. “ He also understands perfectly what is happening in Belarus. He sponsors the political prisoner Sergei Tikhanovsky, husband of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. He is a man who is not afraid to express his point of view, and who formulates it very clearly. He is a man who is willing to take risks », Continues the head of the Belarusian opposition group National Anti-Crisis Management.
An excellent English speaker, with European ambition, Radoslaw Sikorski could, after his mandate as minister, be tempted by other horizons. “ He could undoubtedly still aspire to a leading international position, believes Valentin Behr, whether European or NATO. »
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