Janusz Lewandowski
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Janusz Lewandowski (born 13 June 1951 in Lublin) is a Polish economist and politician belonging to the Gdansk liberals group, and a member of the European Parliament (elected on 13 June 2004), Chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
[edit] Biography
Janusz Lewandowski graduated in economics from Gdansk University, received a doctorate and was a lecturer there until 1984. Later he worked for Polish Oceanic Lines (Polskie Linie Oceaniczne). He was also a lecturer at Harvard University and the founder of the Research Institute for Market Economy in Gdansk (Instytut Badań nad Gospodarką Rynkową w Gdańsku).
He is an author of a book on famous liberals and he also writes short articles for several newspapers and magazines, including Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Parkiet, Polityka, Wprost and Newsweek.
[edit] Political career
From 1980-1989 he was an economics adviser to the Solidarity anti-communist movement, and in 1988 he was one of the founders of the Liberal-Democratic Congress (Kongres Liberalno-Demokratyczny). He was the Minister of Privatization in the cabinets of Jan Krzysztof Bielecki (1990-1991) and Hanna Suchocka (1992-1993). His major successes were the foundation of the Warsaw Stock Exchange and the mass privatization programme (Program Powszechnej Prywatyzacji).
He lost his parliamentary seat in the 1993 elections and worked as an international expert from 1994-1997. After the merger of KLD and Unia Demokratyczna in 1994 he become a member of Unia Wolnosci, and in 1997 member of Sejm representing UW. Together with Donald Tusk and other liberals he seceded from UW to form Platforma Obywatelska, and was elected an MP again in 2001. Since 2003 he was an observer in the European Parliament.
In the European elections of 13th June 2004 he was a candidate of Platforma Obywatelska in constituency #1 Pomeranian Voivodship and received 79,879 votes (=20.17%, the best result in the region). On 23 July 2004 he was elected chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Budgets.
