Anna Fotyga

Who is Anna Fotyga?

Anna Elżbieta Fotyga née Kawecka is a Polish economist, politician, former Member of the European Parliament and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, in the successive cabinets of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and Jarosław Kaczyński. She is Poland's first female to serve in the role

Fotyga is a graduate of the University of Gdańsk and the Danish School of Public Administration. She also served postgraduate internships at the Department of Labor of the United States, Cornell University in New York and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

In 1981, and again after 1989, she acted as Head of the Foreign Office of the Solidarity headquarters in Gdańsk, and was a close associate of Lech Kaczyński. In 2000, Fotyga served as a foreign affairs adviser under then Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. Subsequently, she was Deputy Chair of the Supervisory Board of Social Security Administration with special expertise in International Labour Organization and the World Bank. From 2002 to 2004, she was Deputy Mayor of Gdańsk.

Fotyga garnered 25,994 votes in the 2004 European parliamentary elections as a candidate of the Law and Justice party in the Pomeranian Voivodship.