Lech Wałęsa

Legendary Solidarity leader and President of the Republic of Poland from 1990 to 1995. President Lech Wałęsa has been repeatedly honoured and awarded for his peaceful struggle and his attitude as an ambassador of international solidarity. He is a knight of the Order of the White Eagle and the Order of Polonia Restituta. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1989 he was awarded America's highest honour for a foreigner, the Medal of Freedom. He has received honorary doctorates from more than 45 universities and is an honorary citizen of more than 30 cities around the world. In 1995, he founded the Lech Wałęsa Institute, whose mission is to popularise the achievements of the Polish Solidarity movement, educate young generations, support democracy and build civil society in Poland and worldwide. In 2004, he represented the ten newly acceded countries of the European Union at the official accession ceremonies in Strasbourg. In October 2008, he became a member of the twelve-member reflection group called the Council of Sages. In the same year, he founded a prize named after him, whose winners included Ales Bialiatski, the former Luis Inacio Lula da Silva and Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Being a supporter of globalisation and seeing in it the logic of taking advantage of the opportunities offered by modern technology and the development of civilisation, he urges the construction of new structures for peaceful cooperation among nations in the 21st century.