Member-to-Member Lunch: The Future of the European Union

As the UK moves forward with Brexit and with anti-EU populist movements growing in many member states, what’s next for the European Union? And what does the future hold for Poland as a powerful EU ally exits the union?

Join the World Affairs Council in welcoming Polish Consul General Mariusz Brymora for a member-to-member conversation on the future of the European Union in the face of rising populist movements across the continent, uncertainty in the Eurozone, a more aggressive Russia, and new U.S. leadership.

About the Speaker:

Mariusz M. Brymora was appointed the Consul General of Poland in Los Angeles on September 7, 2013. Before coming to California, he worked as the Deputy Director of the Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs where he supervised the promotional activity of Polish diplomatic missions, including 23 Polish Institutes.

Earlier he had served as the Polish consul in Chicago (1999 – 2003) and as public affairs councilor of the Embassy of Poland in Washington D.C. (2005 – 2009). Consul Brymora is a graduate of the Faculty of English of Maria Skłodowska Curie University in Lublin, Poland, and holder of postgraduate diplomas in British Culture and History from Warsaw University and Ruskin College, Oxford (England).

Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he used to work as an academic teacher and translator of English. His literary translations include two short stories by Bernard Malamud published by Wydawnictwo Literackie in Kraków in 1989. From 1994 until 1998 he served as a councilman and deputy mayor of his hometown Radom, Poland.

He is the recipient of Polonus award for activist of the year in the contest organized by Wietrzne Radio Radio Station for most influential people of the Polish community in Chicago (2002) and Golden Link Award awarded by Polish American Association for outstanding service to Polonia (2003), as well as the Bronze Good Citizenship Medal of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (2008). He is the co-author and editor of 400 Years of Polish Immigrants in America – the album published in 2008 to celebrate the 400^thanniversary of the first Poles’ arrival at Jamestown, Virginia. He also wrote a short history of The Embassy of Poland in Washington DC, published in 2009. While working in Warsaw, he supervised the screenplay and production of Polska?Tak! - a short documentary on Poland’s image as seen through the eyes of the world’s greatest cultural celebrities.