US ambassador nominee pledges to foster rule of law in Poland
US ambassador nominee to Warsaw Mark Brzezinski said during a hearing in the US Senate on Wednesday that he would support the rule of law and minority rights in Poland.
The White House officially announced in early August that President Joe Biden had nominated Brzezinski to serve as his ambassador to Poland. Brzezinski now needs the US Senate's confirmation to take the post.
During the Wednesday hearing before the US Senate's Committee on Foreign Relations, Brzezinski said that he would "continue to promote our sheer commitments to uphold fundamental freedoms and the rule of law as essential to democracy and central to the US-Polish relations."
Brzezinski declared that he would "underscore to the Polish authorities the importance of an impartial judiciary, independent media and respect for human rights of all, including LGBTQI+ people and members of other minorities."
He told US senators that a message he wanted to convey to the Polish government, as a US ambassador, is that his country stands for equality.
Brzezinski added that he would seek the strengthening of US-Poland defence relations well as developing the Three Seas Initiative, aimed at closer energy infrastructure cooperation among the countries lying between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic seas.
He said that he counted on cooperation with Warsaw in the promotion of green energy, including nuclear energy.
Mark Brzezinski, a lawyer, political scientist and diplomat fluent in Polish, is the son of the late Polish-born Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as the US national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter.
Brzezinski Junior served in Barack Obama's administration as the first executive director of the White House's Arctic Executive Steering Committee and as US ambassador to Sweden. He also served on the White House National Security Council during Bill Clinton's administration, first as director for Russia and Eurasia and later as director for the Balkans.
He speaks Polish and French, was a Fulbright scholar in Poland, is the author of The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland and a recipient of the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
The previous US ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, ended her mission after Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump.
