President Andrzej Duda is implementing changes within his chancellery, resulting in a new International Policy Bureau which will take on major diplomatic duties and be involved in helping the president fulfill his role as the highest representative of Poland on the international arena. As a part of the changes, Duda’s office dismissed Krzysztof Szczerski as the Chief of the President’s Chancellery (KRPR) and appointed him the plenipotentiary for establishing the International Policy Bureau.
The new Chief of KRPR is Paweł Szrot, who is the long time deputy head of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery and former Law and Justice (PiS) club legislator. “Starting today, we initiate the project of a diplomatic National Security Bureau (BBN). I have the necessary powers of attorney, and we are starting work on different concepts for such a bureau. The president will be the one to finally decide its organizational form,” Szczerski stated. Szczerski explained that the president’s idea is to establish a second bureau next to the BBN, which fulfills the president’s responsibilities concerning the Polish state’s security and his command over armed forces. The new bureau is meant to be a specialized unit involved with Duda’s tasks in international relations. Minister Szczerski added that the new International Policy Bureau will cooperate with the prime minister and foreign minister in conducting Polish foreign policy. “The idea to create this bureau is the summation of the results of the previous five highly active years, during which President Duda achieved many successes on the international arena through his initiatives in which he cooperated with the Council of Ministers concerning trans-Atlantic relations and the Three Seas Initiative,” he said.
Szczerski stated that the president believed that the time had come to systemize the president’s role in international policy and to institutionalize that policy as a part of the president’s chancellery. “The target model is such that the chancellery functions as the main institution which operates the position of President of Poland. As part of it, two specialized bureaus will be functioning which will be dealing with two specialized areas of the president’s competencies outlined in the constitution — the BBN and the International Policy Bureau,” he said. Krzysztof Szczerski emphasized that his current mission is to formulate the conception of the new bureau’s functioning, discuss it as part of public authorities and to transform the current Foreign Affairs Bureau into the International Policy Bureau.
