Speakers

Konrad Szymański was born on 6 December 1969 in Kalisz. In 1995 he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan.

In 1993-1997, he was an expert of the Committee on Local Government of the Poznan Municipal Council, and from 1997 an adviser to Marcin Libicki, chairman of the Polish delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In 1997-1998 he worked for the Chancellery of the Sejm (lower chamber of the Polish Parliament); in 1999-2000 he advised Deputy Speaker of the Sejm and was a member of the political cabinet of Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz (the chief of Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek’s political cabinet). In 2000-2002, Szymański was TV Puls’ programme editor, and in 2002-2009, editor-in-chief of the bimonthly Międzynarodowy Przegląd Polityczny (International Political Review).

In 2004-2014, Konrad Szymański was a member of the European Parliament from the Law and Justice Party (PiS). He sat on the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), where he dealt with Eastern affairs, the EU’s relations with the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU’s energy security. In 2013 and 2014, Polityka and Rzeczpospolita respectively voted him one of the best Polish members of the European Parliament.

Appointed to the posts of Secretary of State for European Affairs in the MFA and Prime Minister’s Plenipotentiary for European Council meetings on 17 November, 2015.