The Pole who is Europe’s man to watch

Allister Heath meets Radek Sikorski, the Polish defence minister, and hears his robust views on al-Qa’eda, economic reform and the European Union

There are old Cold Warriors — and then there are those who actually donned combat fatigues, picked up AK-47s, and trekked halfway around the world. In the case of Radek Sikorski, a Polish Solidarity student activist who found refuge in Britain, the calling of the Afghan mujahedin proved irresistible and he spent a lengthy period in the late 1980s undercover with the guerrillas as they fought the Red Army to the death.

Today, the 43-year-old Sikorski, a former journalist for The Spectator and husband of one of the magazine’s contributing editors, Anne Applebaum, is Poland’s defence minister and a rising star in Eastern European politics. When I met him over a cup of tea last week at the magazine’s offices in Doughty Street — I believe him when he tells me that almost nothing has changed since his days — Sikorski was in reflective mood.

‘My first trip to Afghanistan in 1986 was with a Spectator advance towards expenses, which I think I’m now safe in admitting I partly spent on settling my debts for the last Bullingdon Club dinner at university,’ he says, trying but failing to sound sheepish about his time at Oxford and his membership of its most exclusive dining society. Sikorski’s English is beautiful; his accent — RP with a hint of transatlantic twang — is difficult to place and sounds almost more Middle Eastern than Polish.

His experience in Afghanistan turned out to be appropriate training for his new role in the Polish government. Poland, now a member of both the EU and Nato, sent troops to Iraq and also to Afghanistan, famously incurring the wrath of France and Germany. ‘Who would have thought in those days that I would one day find that experience useful in shaping Poland’s security policy and preparing a Polish contingent for a Nato mission to Afghanistan? If you had suggested that when I travelled with the mujahedin it would have seemed pretty bizarre.’