Bronislaw Geremek, an icon in the struggle against communist rule in Poland and founding member of the Solidarity trade union, died in a car accident on Sunday, local police reported. He was 76.
Tributes poured in from across Europe for the Euro member of parliament and leading scholar of medieval history, who was a legendary figure in the anti-communist opposition and who served in the post-communist era as foreign minister between 1997 and 2000.
He was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 on the list of Solidarity, the trade union group that led the opposition in Poland before the fall of the communist regime.
PHOTO: EPA
Geremek died when the car in which he was traveling suddenly crossed to the other side of the road before hitting an oncoming vehicle near the town of Lubien, police spokeswoman Hanna Wachowiak said.
In heartfelt tributes, European leaders praised Geremek’s commitment to the continent and both friends and political foes in Poland mourned his loss.
“Polish science and politics have lost a great man. Many of us have lost a friend,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a statement.
Former president Aleksander Kwasniewski, a former communist who converted to social democracy, said he was “shocked. This is an enormous loss.”
Kwasniewski met Geremek during the 1989 round table talks in which general Wojciech Jaruzelski’s communist regime negotiated away its power, where Geremek was Lech Walesa’s chief negotiator.
“He was one of the fathers of Polish democracy,” Kwasniewski said.
As well as being Poland’s foreign minister, Geremek headed the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1998.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso expressed “immense sadness” at his death, saying Geremek was a “European of exceptional greatness, a Pole of unwavering convictions.”
“I would like future generations to remember Bronislaw Geremek as an example of a free spirit, and that he remain in our memory as one of the most powerful symbols of freedom from all oppression,” he said.
The European Parliament and many across the EU rallied behind Geremek last year when Polish authorities threatened to strip him of his mandate as a member of parliament.
Geremek had refused to file a statement saying whether he had ties to the communist-era secret police, saying the new law aimed at purging public life of ex-communist agents was “creating an Orwellian-style ministry of truth.”
His defiant stand led to him being removed from an honorary post in Poland, but the constitutional court decided he could retain his European mandate.
The case provoked particular reaction in France. On Sunday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute “to the memory of this exceptional man, a respected European parliamentarian who through his courage ... embodied the founding values of the European ideal.”
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