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29-563: In 2005, Young Centre split from the Democratic Party (formerly the Freedom Union ). It has focused on pro-European and pro-liberal activities. The current chairman is Kamil Wiszowaty. Among the activities undertaken by Young Centre in the recent years, there are: Workshops and seminars for students from Belarus and Ukraine , mainly related to the political situation in their countries. Support for Poland's accession to

58-678: A first in Polish politics: for the first time, a political party is created by members of the former communist government and former opposition members. Also, while the UW was a somewhat elitist party appealing mostly to educated and affluent urban voters, the PD is trying to establish itself as a populist party with a broad appeal, which caters for centrist social-liberals (Frasyniuk), pragmatic centrists with leanings toward economic liberalism (Hausner) and centrist Christian democrats (Mazowiecki). As of 27 May 2005,

87-514: A post-communist background. As minister of economic affairs and employment in the governments of Leszek Miller and Marek Belka , he conceived the so-called Hausner Plan ( Plan Hausnera ), a programme for market-socialist reform concerning state-owned business, public administration, and social security. After his reform met with persistent opposition, he left the SLD in a much debated move on 7 February 2005 and resigned from office on 30 March 2005. From

116-431: A strong background in liberal Catholicism and leans towards Christian democracy . In 2001, these frictions - combined with the prospect of a devastating defeat in the upcoming election - led to an exodus of conservative and liberal conservative members around Tusk who joined former members of the UW's senior coalition partner, the conservative Solidarity Electoral Action , to form the new party Civic Platform . In

145-618: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Freedom Union (Poland) The Freedom Union ( Polish : Unia Wolności , UW) was a liberal democratic political party in Poland. It was founded on 20 March 1994 out of the merger of the Democratic Union ( Unia Demokratyczna , UD) and the Liberal Democratic Congress ( Kongres Liberalno-Demokratyczny , KLD). Both of these parties had roots in

174-640: The European Parliament as part of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party , of which it was a member. The initiative by the FU leadership to found the centre/social-liberal Democratic Party ( Partia Demokratyczna – demokraci.pl ) attracted a lot of attention. It was cofounded by Władysław Frasyniuk and economy minister Jerzy Hausner , joined by prime minister Marek Belka . Former FU member Tadeusz Mazowiecki also joined

203-615: The European Union and advocating pro-European policies ( Euro accession, students' exchange programmes, actions in support of the European Constitution ) Seminars and conferences on various topics around personal and economic liberty, e.g., the limits of freedom in art, personal entrepreneurship, the challenges of democracy In 2004, Młode Centrum sent its observers to the presidential elections in Ukraine under

232-616: The Freedom Union and attempted to extend the original voter coalition of the Freedom Union by left-leaning voter groups. The party wanted to appeal to the urban, liberal middle class, and its proposals included a creation of a special metropolitan voivodeship for Warsaw. At the same time, it worked with social democratic parties, such as the Democratic Left Alliance and Social Democracy of Poland, although there were few proposals all three parties agreed to, such as

261-628: The Freedom Union , which it legally succeeded. At the 2007 election to the Sejm , the party ran as part of the Left and Democrats (LiD) list, and won three of the alliance's 53 seats. These members left the party in 2009 to join the newly revived Democratic Party . The party was dissolved on 12 November 2016 to form Union of European Democrats . The party was a member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Party. The Democratic Party

290-540: The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe mission. The members of YC were also present at various elections in countries of limited or virtual democracy: Belarus , Moldova , Azerbaijan . Marek Edelman Jan Kułakowski Jacek Kuroń Tadeusz Mazowiecki This article about an organisation in Poland is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Polish politics -related article

319-481: The Solidarity trade union movement. It represented European democratic and liberal tradition, i.e., it advocated free market economy and individual liberty, rejected extremism and fanaticism, favoured European integration (in the form of European Union membership), rapid privatisation of the enterprises still owned by the Polish state and decentralisation of the government. In the 1991 general elections ,

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348-449: The 2001 general elections, the Freedom Union received only 3.1% and thus failed to cross the 5% threshold required to gain entry to Parliament. With Władysław Frasyniuk replacing Geremek as chairman, the Freedom Union continued to exist as a centrist party, but lost much of its relevance in Polish politics. It was enjoying the support of approximately 3% of voters, to fall to 1% and below in 2009. However, probably due to low voter turnout,

377-542: The 2009 European elections, reaching similar support as the newly founded Polish green party Greens 2004 . This outcome was seen as a defeat. In June 2009 two of the elected parliamentarists left the party. On 10 January, Brygida Kuźniak became a new leader of Democrats, beating former deputy leader Bogdan Lis. Currently, also the third parliamentarist switched to the Democratic Party ( Stronnictwo Demokratyczne ), as well as many prominent leaders that do not share

406-526: The Democratic Left Alliance. Although it attracted considerable media attention and support from many Polish intellectuals, it received only 2.5% of the vote (and no seats in parliament) in the Polish parliamentary election in October 2005 . The core of the Democratic Party is made up by the members of the Freedom Union ( Unia Wolności , UW), which had so far been the most important Christian democratic group in

435-499: The KLD received 7.5% of the vote and 37 seats in the Sejm (out of 460 seats) and the UD got 12.3% of the votes and 62 seats. In 1993 the KLD got 4.0% of the votes and was left without seats; the UD got 10.6% of the votes and 74 seats. In 1997 the UW got 13.4% of the votes and 60 seats. In January 2001 some members of the FU (mostly from centre-right and KLD factions) decided to move to join

464-460: The Polish political landscape. Since its inception in 1994, the UW had to cope with internal frictions between various factions: liberals (such as Leszek Balcerowicz ), those proposing a more liberal economic agenda in a more conservative , bourgeois guise (such as Donald Tusk ), more progressive social democrats such as Jacek Kuroń , and intellectual former civil rights activists such as Bronisław Geremek or Tadeusz Mazowiecki , who also has

493-516: The UW in November 2002 after it had left the conservative and Christian democratic European People's Party in favour of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party , and entered coalitions with the social-democratic Democratic Left Alliance and the right-wing populist Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland party on the local level. Hausner, on the other hand, is an economist with

522-568: The beginning, Frasyniuk, Hausner and Mazowiecki appealed to Prime Minister Marek Belka to join the party. Belka, another former SLD member, had left the party in the early 1990s, but joined Leszek Miller's government as a non-party minister of economic affairs in 2001 before resigning the following year. After an interlude as economic director in the interim coalition administration of Iraq in 2003, Belka returned to Poland to become non-party head of an SLD minority government in 2004. The involvement of Hausner and Belka as prominent post-communists marks

551-497: The initiative. Legally the centrist Democratic Party, founded 9 May 2005, is the successor of the FU. Democratic Party - demokraci.pl The Democratic Party ( Polish : Partia Demokratyczna – demokraci.pl ), abbreviated to PD , was a minor social - liberal political party in Poland . It had no members of the Sejm , Senate , or European Parliament . Its foundation was publicly announced on 28 February 2005 and formally established on 9 May 2005 as an 'enlargement' of

580-536: The manifesto. In 2006, the party created the Left and Democrats (LiD) political coalition with the Democratic Left Alliance, Social Democracy of Poland and Labour Union . It continued to join the coalition for the parliamentary elections 2007. It gained 3 parliamentary seats in the lower chamber of Polish Diet. The coalition was ended in March 2008, and 3 democratic members of parliament formed their own parliamentary group. The Democrats gathered only 25,937 votes in

609-455: The need to bail out indebted hospitals and to build an anti-missile shield in Poland. The Democratic Party however also stressed its distance to centre-left parties, and stressed its ideological centrism. Key proposals of the party include: The Freedom Union's transformation into the Democratic Party has not significantly increased voter support for the centrists, which since autumn 2004 has been oscillating between 3% and 6%. In June 2005, it

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638-490: The new Civic Platform ( Platforma Obywatelska ), which got 12.7% of the votes and 65 seats in the September 2001 general elections whilst the FU failed to cross the 5% threshold required to gain entry to the lower house of Parliament , receiving only 3.1%. Surprisingly, the FU managed to cross the required 5% threshold in the 2004 European Parliament elections , receiving 7% of votes and 4 of 54 seats reserved for Poland in

667-531: The new shift in party's ideology. The party joined the Europa Plus political alliance on 24 June 2013. On 12 November 2016, the party was dissolved and merged with the European Democrats club at the Sejm to form a new party called Union of European Democrats , which is generally less progressive and more moderate conservative than Democratic Party was. The party was a direct successor of

696-463: The party claimed to have 13,000+ members, out of which 8,000 were members of the Freedom Union. It defined itself as, "above all, a group of young people not previously involved in politics, which at the same time is drawing on the best traditions of the liberal-democratic milieu around the Freedom Union" [1] . Despite this statement the party is made of several former politicians, who had run Poland before, as well as including ex-members of SLD who left

725-560: The party managed to cross the required 5% threshold in the 2004 European Parliament elections , receiving 7% of votes and 4 out of 54 seats reserved for Poland in the European Parliament as part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party , of which it is a member. On 29 February 2005, Frasyniuk came out with the initiative to merge the UW into a new social-liberal party to be called "the Democrats", which he presented with Mazowiecki and Jerzy Hausner . Mazowiecki had left

754-510: The party merely reached 1% of support in a poll. As a result, some political observers question the party's ability to further continue in its present shape. The Democratic Party has attracted criticism from other former oppositionists from communist times, who criticise that the party accepts former members of the post-communist SLD, and strongly opposes the large-scale vetting of officials and politicians (see Bronisław Wildstein ) aimed at eliminating former state agents from political life. Also,

783-721: The party when it faced a corruption crisis. A manifesto entitled "Development through Democracy" issued by the party in February 2005 was signed by a broad range of Polish intellectuals and artists, including Paweł Huelle (writer), Marek Edelman (physician, last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising ), Agnieszka Holland (director), Marek Kondrat (actor), Kazimierz Kutz (director), Jan Miodek (linguist), Daniel Olbrychski (actor), Jerzy Pilch (writer), Henryk Samsonowicz (historian), Jerzy Szacki (sociologist). Lech Wałęsa's son Jarosław Wałęsa also signed

812-405: Was at 4% and has since deteriorated; in the parliamentary elections of September 2005, it reached 2.5%, failing to overcome the election threshold of 5%. Because the party received less than 3%, it does not receive refunds of its campaign costs. It also lacks significant presence in the media as a consequence of its poor election result, which has further diminished its appeal. In December 2005,

841-437: Was formed on the initiative of Freedom Union chairman Władysław Frasyniuk , together with the social-democratic economist Jerzy Hausner , until recently a member of the governing post-communist Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), and prominent Christian democrat, former UW member Tadeusz Mazowiecki . It was since strongly supported, but thus far not yet officially joined, by then Prime Minister Marek Belka and centrist members of

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