Danuta Hübner

Danuta Hübner, Poland’s first-ever European Commissioner, is one of her country’s foremost economists and policymakers and has played a key role in the enlargement of the EU. Since July 2009 Ms. Hübner is a Member of the European Parliament. Currently she is the Chair of the prestigious Committee on Constitutional Affairs as well as member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Delegation for relations with the United States. She was also a member of the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect from 2014 to 2016. In addition she is a substitute member of the Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, the Delegation to the EU-Mexico Joint Parliamentary Committee and the Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly.

During the 7th Legislature she was the Chair of the Committee on Regional Development as well as a member of the Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis and the Delegation for Relations with the United States. In addition she was a substitute member of the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, the Special Committee on the Policy Challenges and Budgetary Resources for a Sustainable European Union after 2013 and the Delegation for Relations with Switzerland, Iceland and Norway and to the European Economic Area.

In 2004 Professor Hübner was entrusted as Commissioner with the regional policy portfolio. Earlier, during the past decade, her roles in Poland’s Government have included Minister for European Affairs, Head of Office of the Committee for European Integration and Secretary of State for Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Minister for Industry and Trade and Minister Head of the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. In 2000-2001 Professor Hübner was Under-Secretary-General of the UN and Executive Secretary at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva. She studied at the Warsaw School of Economics where she obtained an MSc (1971) and a PhD (1974). In 1988-1990 Professor Hübner was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1992 she was conferred with the scientific title of Professor of Economics by the President of the Republic of Poland. She has been awarded with five doctorates honoris causa by European universities.