Aleksander Kwaśniewski

Aleksander Kwaśniewski is the former President of the Republic of Poland (1995-2005) and Chairman of the Board of Yalta European Strategy.
He participated in the famous “Round-Table” negotiations in Poland that finally brought the peaceful transformation of Poland from communism to democracy. President Kwaśniewski was a co-founding member and first chairman of the Social Democratic Party of the Republic of Poland. He won the presidential elections for the first time in 1995 and co-authored the new democratic Constitution of Poland, which was signed into law on July 16th, 1997.
It was under President Kwaśniewski’s leadership that Poland finally joined NATO in 1999. He is an active supporter of further alliance enlargement under the “open door” policy. A strong proponent of European integration, Kwaśniewski campaigned for approval of the European Union accession treaty in 2003, and saw Poland become an EU member on May 1, 2004.
President Kwaśniewski was a mediator on behalf of the European Union during the Orange Revolution in the years of 2004 - 2005 and a special envoy of the European Parliament to Ukraine together with Pat Cox, to act for the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement and for releasing political prisoners within years 2012-2013.