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.: Spring '16 :.

Grassroots Democracy in Poland

Urszula Gacek, Consul General of the Republic of Poland in New York

Friday, April 15th

Welles-Brown Room, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester River Campus

Well-functioning local government is one of the fundamental guarantees of civil liberty. The talk will discuss the transformation of local government in Poland, its successes, failures, and main features, which include public-private partnership, participatory budgeting, and civil society.

Consul General Urszula Gacek, the daughter of Polish émigrés, was born in Great Britain. Her father, Bolesław, was a WWII veteran, who served in the Army of General Władysław Anders. She is a graduate of the University of Oxford and has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In 1991, she moved from Great Britain to Poland. For many years, she was engaged in business, as an expert. In 2005, she was elected to the Polish Senate and was an active member of the Committee for Emigration Affairs and Contacts with Poles Abroad, the Foreign Affairs and European Union Affairs Committees, as well as being Deputy Chair of the Polish-British Parliamentary Group. Urszula Gacek was a delegate of the Polish Senate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

In 2007, she became a Member of the European Parliament. She served as a Member of the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and of the Sub-committee on Security and Defense. Furthermore, she participated in the work of the European Parliament’s EU-USA delegation, as well as the delegations to Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Between February 2011 and November 2014, Urszula Gacek acted as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. On 21 December, 2014, she took up the post of Poland’s Consul General in New York.

Reception will follow the talk.

Free and open to the public