election-watch.eu

Vienna, 22 February 2024: We are honoured to welcome Ambassador Urszula Gacek as the first Advisory Board Member. Amb. Gacek has a solid experience in elections and election observation and will provide advice to Election-Watch.EU in the upcoming tasks surrounding the June 2024 European Parliament elections and beyond. 

Ambassador Urszula Gacek is a former senior diplomat in the Polish MFA, Poland’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe and Consul General in New York. During her term in Strasbourg, she chaired a key ambassadorial body – the Committee of Ministers’ Rapporteur Group on Democracy for a two-year term.

As Consul General in New York, she was responsible for the co-ordination and oversight of Presidential and Parliamentary elections and a national referendum in the New York Consular District. She has also held elected office, as both a member of the Polish Senate and of the European Parliament.

Amb. Gacek is an experienced electoral observer having been a short-term observer with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and more recently regularly acting as Head of Mission on ODIHR Election Observation Missions.  In the fall of 2020, she headed the ODIHR Limited Election Observation Mission in the USA.

In 2000-2023 she was an adviser to the Foreign and European Union Affairs Committee of the Polish Senate.  She is currently a member of the TeamEurope group of experts working with the Polish office of the European Commission, focusing on democratisation and electoral issues. 

Born and educated in the United Kingdom, she holds a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

She is committed to promoting best electoral practices in accordance with international standards.