Elżbieta Ewa Bieńkowska (née Moycho; born on 4 February 1964) is a Polish politician who served as Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development and Transport before becoming a European Commissioner in the team of Jean-Claude Juncker from 2014 to 2019. Bieńkowska was Minister of Regional Development in Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Cabinet from 16 November 2007 until 27 November 2013, when she was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Poland while continuing her previous responsibilities at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development.

Education

Bieńkowska graduated from Jagiellonian University with a Master's degree in Oriental Philology in 1989. She has also received a post-graduate Diploma from the Polish National School of Public Administration and afterwards a postgraduate studies MBA from SGH Warsaw School of Economics.

Professional career

Bieńkowska's career in public administration started at Katowice City Council where she worked on regional contracts being promoted, in 1999, as head of Katowice's Department for Economy. Later that year, she was appointed Director of Regional Development for the Silesian Voivodeship, where she served until 2007.

Career in politics

Bieńkowska describes herself as a technocrat. She is not a party member, and was elected to the Senate of Poland in 2011 as an independent candidate, backed by the Civic Platform.

Minister for Infrastructure and Development, 2007–2013

In the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Bieńkowska served as Minister for Infrastructure and Development for Poland, as well as Deputy Prime Minister from the end of 2013 until the end of September 2014. In this capacity, she was charge of allocating European Union funding and the country's transport infrastructure. Under her leadership, the ministry was Poland's second-largest department after the ministry of finance, with 1,600 employees and nine deputy ministers. In February 2013, she secured €105.8 billion from the EU budget for 2014-20.

Member of the European Commission, 2014–2019

On 3 September 2014, Bieńkowska was announced as the Polish nominee to the European Commission, in place of foreign affairs minister Radek Sikorski, who had been put forward in August in a bid to secure the post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. On 10 September 2014, Juncker designated Bieńkowska as European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, following which, on 1 November 2014, she took office in the Juncker Commission. In her capacity as Commissioner, Bieńkowska was in charge of the industrial part of the EU’s defence and security strategy and chaired the European Commission's High-level Group of Personalities on Defence Research from 2015. In 2016, she proposed the European Defence Fund and the accompanying European Defense Industrial Development Program, as part of the response to Britain’s decision to leave the EU. Also during her time in office, Bieńkowska pushed for the European Commission to have oversight powers to supervise national controls and tests for cars in the wake of the Volkswagen emissions scandal. In 2018, she called for investing Horizon Europe funds of €20 billion into artificial intelligence research.

Other activities

Honours and decorations

Personal life

Bieńkowska is married and has three children.