Lebedev is a Senior Advisor to the CEO of the United States Chamber of Commerce, the largest business federation in the world, and is a member of the Chamber’s Board of Directors and its Executive Committee.Īnne Applebaum is a columnist for the Washington Post and a Pulitzer Prize winning historian. CIPE’s mission is to promote free-market institutions and economic reform throughout the world. Greg Lebedev serves as Chairman of the publicly funded Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), one of the four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy. In 2007, Leszek Balcerowicz is the founder and chairman of The Civil Development Forum Foundation – FOR, a think tank based in Warsaw. In 2005, Leszek Balcerowicz was awarded the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest distinction for his contribution in the economic and political transformation in Poland. Balcerowicz is the author of more than 100 publications on economic topics issued in Poland and abroad, and laureate of many prestigious Polish and international prizes and distinctions. He is a laureate of over 20 honorary doctorates from universities all around the world. He also served as President of the National Bank of Poland from 2001-2007. He is the author of the economic reforms in post-communist Poland after 1989, and served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance in the first non-communist government of Poland after World War II. Leszek Balcerowicz is an economist and professor at the Warsaw School of Economics. He heads the labor movement’s efforts to create an economy based on broadly shared prosperity and to hold elected officials and employers accountable to working families. An outspoken advocate for social and economic justice, Trumka is the nation’s clearest voice on the critical need to ensure that all workers have a good job and the power to determine their wages and working conditions. Richard Trumka is president of the 12.5-million-member AFL-CIO. His nonviolent struggle as the leader of the democratic opposition resulted in Poland’s successful transition to democracy in 1989, and was a catalyst to the collapse of communist rule in the whole of Eastern Europe. He was the leader of Solidarity (NSZZ “Solidarność”), one of the first oppositional and freedom-oriented social movements in the communist bloc, for which he was awarded the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize. Lech Walesa is a Polish elder statesman, pro-democracy activist and union organizer who served as the first democratically elected President of Poland from 1990 to 1995. Assistant Secretary Destro has been on the faculty at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law since 1982 and served as its Interim Dean from 1999 to 2001, as well as founding director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies. He has a long history as a human rights advocate and civil rights attorney with expertise in elections, employment, and constitutional law. Robert Destro serves as Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the U.S. Moderator: Daniel Fried, Former US Ambassador to Poland About the Speakers George Weigel, Author and Biographer of Pope John Paul II Simon Panek, Executive Director, People in Need, Czech Republic Victoria Nuland, Former Assistant Secretary of State for Europe Panel Discussion: Defending Democracy in Poland and Central Europe Introduced by CIPE Board Chairman Greg Lebedev Leszek Balcerowicz, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Poland. Poland’s Political and Economic Transition Introduced by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka Lech Walesa, Founder of Solidarity and the Former President of Poland Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Thirty years later, NED was delighted to have the opportunity to reflect on this historic transition with the iconic leader of Solidarity, former president of Poland, Lech Walesa as well as former deputy prime minister of Poland Leszek Balcerowicz.įollowing our keynote speakers, a distinguished panel of regional experts discussed what threatens these hard-won democratic gains and what must be done to defend and strengthen democracy throughout Central and Eastern Europe.Ĭarl Gershman, President of the National Endowment for Democracy Not only did it liberate the Polish people from the yoke of communism, but it also set in motion the events leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism in Central Europe and the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. The triumph of Poland’s Solidarity trade union movement in 1989 stands out as one of the most consequential victories for human freedom of this or any other century.
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