Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz

Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz (born 29 July 1961) is a Polish politician who served as Minister of the Interior in the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk from 25 February 2013 to 22 September 2014. From 13 December 2023 to 13 May 2024, Sienkiewicz has served as Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the third cabinet of Donald Tusk.

Early life and education
Sienkiewicz was born on 29 July 1961. He is the great-grandson of Nobel Prize–winning author Henryk Sienkiewicz. Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz is a graduate of Jagiellonian University.

Early life and career
Sienkiewicz participated in Cracow's opposition movement in the early 1980s. In 1990, he co-established the Office for State Protection and the Centre for Eastern Studies, a think-tank organization. He served as the deputy director of the center for eight years, specifically from 1991 to 1993 and from 1996 to 2001.

In the early 2000s, Sienkiewicz left the state administration and began to work in private sector, founding a firm on the investment risk and analysis of the competitive environment (ASBS Othago, then "Sienkiewicz and Partners").

Minister of the Interior, 2013–2014
On 25 February 2013, Sienkiewicz was appointed by President Bronisław Komorowski as Minister of the Interior to the cabinet led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Sienkiewicz replaced Jacek Cichocki in the post.

Sienkiewicz was one of the politicians at the centre of the tape scandal that occurred in Poland in the summer of 2014 when many of the key figures of the Polish political scene were covertly recorded in private. He was recorded during a conversation with Marek Belka, governor of the National Bank of Poland, during which they discussed in a Warsaw restaurant a possible change of the Minister of Finance; Belka and Sienkiewicz later said their words were taken out of context and they denied doing anything illegal. In July 2014, the Polish parliament rejected a motion of no confidence in Sienkiewicz. However, the district prosecutor's office in Warsaw launched an investigation in August 2014 to establish if Belka and Sienkiewicz had exceeded their authority.

Sienkiewicz resigned along with the entire government following the election of Donald Tusk as the new President of the European Council and did not enter the new cabinet headed by Ewa Kopacz.

Parliamentary career
In the 2019 elections, Sienkiewicz won a seat in the Ninth Sejm, having run as the leader of the Civic Platform list in the Kielce district and receiving 35,009 votes. After the elections, he joined the PO and in January 2020 filed his candidacy for party chairman. As a result of the vote in the same month, he came in last place among the four candidates.

Sienkiewicz was again elected to the Parliament in the general election on 15 October 2023.

Minister of Culture and National Heritage, 2023–2024
He was appointed Minister of Culture and National Heritage on 13 December 2023 to the cabinet led by Donald Tusk. On 19 December 2023, he illegally dismissed the directors of TVP, Polish Radio and PAP, leading to the 2023 takeover of TVP.

The move was met with criticism and accusations of illegality by the dismissed management and the opposition Law and Justice party, causing a parliamentary intervention in the TVP headquarters.

On 25 April 2024, Sienkiewicz resigned from the ministry and announced his candidacy for the European Parliament in elections to be held on 9 June, waiting for the president to have accepted his resignation.

Personal life
Sienkiewicz is married and has four children.