Polish ambassador highlights favourite moments from his five years in the role

After five years of service the Polish Ambassador to the UK, Arkady Rzegocki, will soon be leaving his post to take up a high profile new role as Head of Poland’s Foreign Service.

The POLES IN THE UK Project, which I lead, has enjoyed a very positive relationship with Mr Rzegocki over those years. We have collaborated in many ways to enhance knowledge of British-Polish history, and the positive contribution that Polish people have made to UK, over the centuries. The Ambassador’s personal and active support of our work has helped to give us a high profile and ensured that so many people are aware of our key messages.

Particularly significant for us have been:

-An invitation for myself and my co-author Maria Żukowska to meet the Ambassador following the publication of our popular book ‚Poles in the UK: A Story of Friendship and Cooperation’.

-An exclusive interview I carried out with the Ambassador about his role, for Tydzień Polski newspaper, a year after he took up his role.

-A film which I made for TVP Polonia, featuring the Ambassador, which focussed on Polish connections in my home city of Leeds in Yorkshire.

I caught up with Mr Rzegocki before he left London for Warsaw to begin his new role. I was intrigued to find out about his memories and achievements from his time as Ambassador, and his assessment of the prospects for British-Polish relations.

Looking back at your time as ambassador, what are favourite memories and achievements?

`If you ask me about my best memories and achievements, these will be all the meetings with Poles and Brits who are strongly involved in promoting Polish knowledge in the UK. The joint exhibitions, ceremonies in museums and events promoting the common Polish-British history are moments that I will be returning to for a long time, because they are accompanied by a lot of positive emotions and the enormous commitment of great people.

My mission was to continue the many years of work of my predecessors to strengthen Polish-British cooperation in many areas. I am particularly pleased that Poland has recently become a significant trading partner of Great Britain, and our political contacts are much more intense and close, which also applies to defence and security issues.

The same is with our people-to-people relations. Initiatives such as Polish Heritage Days show best the commitment at the level of local authorities, MPs or local service representatives that the issues of the Polish minority are important to them.

At the same time, I am glad that more and more Poles are deciding to return to Poland. After many years spent here, they are a natural bridge between our nations. The best ambassadors of Polish-British friendship.

Thanks to people like you Brin, knowledge about Poland is more and more common in the UK. Popularization of knowledge about Poland and its culture and history is also very well served by the recently published books by outstanding British historians and journalists such as Roger Moorhouse, Sir Dermot Turing, Jack Fairweather, Robert Frost, Richard Butterwick.’

What are your hopes for the future of UK-Polish relations?

`My hope for the future is to deal with the effects of the pandemic and Brexit as soon as possible. It is a great challenge for the whole of Europe and the world. I also count on the growing interest of the British in Poland as the engine of the EU economy, as well as in the Poles living here. It is hard not to notice the influence of the one million Polish minority on the cultural, economic and social development of the United Kingdom. I really hope that this good cooperation so far will be continued.’

Brin Best is the leader of the POLES IN THE UK Project. You can download a free eBook of his and Maria Żukowska’s book ‚Poles in the UK’ from www.polesintheuk.net.

Brin Best