Graduate of the German and Dutch philology at the University of Wrocław as well as of postgraduate studies at the Polish Institute of International Affairs and at the Diplomatic Academy of the German MFA.
From 1988 to 1991, he was employed as a lecturer at his alma mater, in 1991 he started working as a diplomat at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland.
He was involved in activities relating to Poland’s accession to the European Union and held numerous positions related to Poland’s accession to the EU. He worked at the Polish Mission to the European Union, from 2000 to 2001 he was Deputy Director and then Director of the European Union Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 2001 to 2003 – Deputy Representative of Poland to the EU.
From 2003 to 2008, he was Poland’s first ambassador to the European Union’s Political and Security Committee. He headed Jerzy Buzek’s cabinet when the latter was the President of the European Parliament (2009–2011). Since 2011, he was the Deputy Secretary-General of the European External Action Service, since 2016 the Deputy Director-General of the Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) of the European Commission and, since 2020, the acting Director-General thereof. He was responsible, for example, for the preparation of the Commission’s opinions on the EU membership of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia and on the topic of reconstruction of Ukraine. Since March 2023, he has been the Director-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO).
Author of the books Alfabet brukselski (2015), Płonące lustra (2022) and Trudnopis (2023), as well as articles and essays for, inter alia, the Polish newspapers Gazeta Wyborcza and Fakt. Co-founder and Board of Governors member (2013-2023) of the European Endowment for Democracy.
He was awarded the Silver Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland, the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta and the Third-Class Ukrainian Order of Merit. Black belt in aikido.
He speaks English, German, Dutch, French and Russian.