Former finance minister Rostowski wins media award

Jacek Rostowski (C) receives his Kisiel Award from former cycling champion Czeslaw Lang and Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Photo: PAP/Jacek Turczyk

Rostowski, who lost his post in a government reshuffle in November during his second term in office, was likened by the panel of previous winners to a military sapper.

“With a financial crisis threatening Poland, he cleared the minefield,” announced Mayor of Warsaw and previous winner Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz.

Rostowski said that he was “not ashamed” to accept the award.

“We do not choose the place or the time in which we serve,” he said, adding that as “a young liberal” (Rostowski grew up in the UK as the son of wartime emigres), he would never have imagined that he would serve at a time of “the worst crisis”in 70 years.

Rostowski spearheaded controversial reforms that included raising the national retirement age to 67 to both sexes, as a means of combating Poland's growing demographic imbalance.

He also prepared a bill by which a portion of Poland's private Open Pension Funds invested in Treasury bonds will be channelled back into the country's social security system. The bill was signed by President Komorowski last month.

The Kisiel Awards were launched in 1990 by journalist Stefan Kisielewski (d.1991).

Prizes are also handed out in two other categories: journalism and business.

Adam Michnik, editor-in-chief of the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza won in the journalism category, while Dariusz Milek, owner of footwear company CCC, took the prize in the business bracket. (nh)

Source: PAP